A/N: No, you're not imagining things. I'm back! My son was born in early August and he his healthy and super adorable! Parenting is, as you can imagine, incredibly time-consuming but in the best way (most of the time). Combining that new parent life with a nasty case of writer's block is the answer to where I've been and what the hell I've been doing: changing diapers and twiddling my thumbs wondering why the English language is so damn hard. I never promise regular updates and I'm not about to start now but hopefully I'll be better from now on.
In the meantime, y'all are the best. Thank you so much for the follows, favorites, and reviews. And extra special thank you to Stencil Your Heart who is still my beta-extraordinaire and never complains when I spam her with baby pictures.
Disclaimer: you know what's mine and what's not.
Chapter 7 – We'll Meet Again
"It's not for nothing, but the last time I saw that expression on your face was after a long flight into Kiev."
Sadie didn't tear her eyes away from the windows though she quirked an eyebrow in acknowledgement of Steve's casual comment. The corner of her stiff mouth twitched toward a smile that wouldn't quite form. "It certainly wasn't the first time I got sick after a flight, though Dum Dum never let me live that one down."
"In your defense, it was pretty rough going."
"I hate flying, I really do," she noted and blew out a soft sigh that was slow to leave her lungs. "But you don't have to worry; I've got no plans of a repeat performance today."
Steve ducked his head but Sadie caught his grin in the window's reflection as he did. "Good, I don't do that kind of stuff well."
Sadie, who had seen her fair share of sick patients and come into contact with more types of bodily fluid than she ever wanted to count, shrugged one shoulder. "Most people don't but that's beside the point. I'm alright, Steve. I wouldn't be here if I thought I couldn't handle it."
Steve shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded, still gazing down at his shoes. Not for the first time that morning, Sadie wondered if it was actually Steve in need of more overt support and he was going about getting it by focusing the majority of his attention on her. He wasn't what she would consider a fidgety or nervous sort but since they'd met at breakfast, he couldn't stop moving. At first it was little gestures, repeatedly raking his fingers through his hair, rubbing his face, or constantly putting his hands in his pockets only to remove them and silently clasp them together before crossing his arms tightly over his chest. By the time they arrived at Shuri's lab, he'd started his best impression of a circus animal anxiously pacing its cage. In a way, Sadie wished he would just admit outright what he was feeling rather than allowing his simmering anxiety to become contagious, sinking beneath her skin. She had fears and nerves enough of her own.
"Out of curiosity, is there anything you can't handle?"
Now Sadie did smile in earnest, her first all day. The blunt quality of Steve's question betrayed his utter desperation to talk about literally anything but the matter before them.
"Well, apparently I don't cope well with extremely turbulent trans-European flights. So, there's that. I was never much for combat jumps either. If it makes you feel even remotely better, I always had to have Doc Holmes or Evelyn stand behind me in the stick to physically nudge me out the door."
"I didn't know that," Steve mused and Sadie shrugged her shoulders.
"Like I said, I hate flying. But I hated jumping out of a perfectly sound airplane even more." She raised her chin, aiming her gaze toward the heights of the cavern that bordered one side of Shuri's lab. The modern marvels that surrounded her couldn't hold a candle to the shining veins of vibranium that laced the rock. Sadie could spend an age parked in front of the enormous windows, trying to make patterns out of the lines of metal or watching the high speed mining cars zip along the tracks, carrying Wakanda's precious secret to be processed. After spending two weeks in her host country Sadie now understood that, one way or another, vibranium touched nearly every facet of Wakandan life. The invaluable resource found its way into the fibers used for clothing, into the transportation, building construction, weapon design, and even into the food. It was through vibranium that Wakanda became both the most advanced country on the planet and, subsequently, the most secretive.
For her part, Sadie didn't necessarily blame previous generations of rulers for
hiding Wakanda's bounty from the world. She shuddered to think what the Nazis would have done for even a slice of this power or, even worse, HYDRA. Wakanda's cloaked nature also allowed it to operate on the fringes, giving Princess Shuri the wiggle room she needed to perform somewhat questionable experiments, including her bold attempt at undoing decades of brainwashing on the world's most wanted war criminal.
As it had done seemingly every five minutes for the past two weeks, Sadie's brain found its way back to Bucky. As if he could read her mind, Steve laid a brotherly hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.
"It's gonna be okay," he assured her, though Sadie again wondered if he was saying this more for his benefit than hers. "He'll be just fine."
Sadie thought that 'just fine' was a relative term. In her book, 'just fine' meant the Bucky she knew and loved. And although she was hopeful that Shuri could rid his mind of his trigger words, she wasn't naive enough to think that this miracle alone would restore Bucky to his former self. Shuri could save him from further mind control but she couldn't erase the memories and experiences that led him down the dark path to this moment.
"I just hate that there's nothing I can do," she murmured, eyes darting across the windows to follow a mine car. "You know how I feel about being useless."
"About the same way I feel," Steve noted and she bit back another humorless smile.
"Bucky did like to say that we were too similar for his own good." Sadie crossed her arms tighter over her chest. She felt small in comparison to the grandeur of Shuri's lab, standing in the shadows of the enormous vibranium mine. In the grand scheme of the plan to rehabilitate Bucky, she felt similarly small. By now Sadie thought she'd be used to feeling unsure of herself in this new world but at every turn she discovered a new way to expose her insecurities - novel technology, changed customs and now her stance in regard to her former fiance. Try as she might to subdue it, a frown pulled at the corners of her mouth. "You're going to talk to him once he's awake?"
Sadie marveled at how fast the tables turned. Only a moment ago she was worried about Steve's need for additional comfort. Now here she was, doing her best to subtly feel out the situation whilst simultaneously seeking any sort of reassurance she could get. Whether or not Steve picked up on her private struggle, he was polite enough to let it go unobserved.
"As soon as I can. He owes me some answers and I think it's a good idea to tell him you're here instead of springing you on him."
Sadie didn't disagree with any of Steve's assessment. "Do you really think he was looking for me?"
"I won't know until I know. But yeah, I do. I've got no clue why he'd be in Romania otherwise. I just hope he can fill in some of the gaps in your memory."
"You and me both," she muttered under her breath.
Whether Steve planned to say anything more or not, Sadie never found out. At that moment one of Shuri's attendants appeared, giving the pair a gracious nod of her head. "We're ready to begin."
In an instant, Sadie thought she might break her promise to Steve and be spectacularly ill all over the shining floor. Her stomach rolled over and her throat tied itself in a knot, threatening to cut off her air supply. Sadie knew she'd been barrelling toward this moment ever since she accepted T'Challa's offer, but up until now the entire notion of deprogramming Bucky felt like an exercise in the fantastic. She barely understood the basics of brainwashing and mind control. The many complicated and nuanced layers of Shuri's brilliant, ground-breaking plan to reverse the worst of the damage went so far above her head that it might as well have been a C-47 roaring through the clouds. All Sadie knew was the process was incredibly delicate and the outcome, no matter Shuri's personal confidence level, remained far from certain. Steve's assurance that Bucky was going to be 'just fine' felt like a pipe dream. At this point, Sadie was hoping for 'in one piece' or 'no worse for the wear.'
Once again a swell of bitterness flooded her mouth, reminding her that she had to live with her anxiety. Even if she understood the mechanics of the deprogramming process, there was literally nothing she could do to help. All she could do was follow Shuri's attendant down a short hallway and into a part of the lab she'd never seen before, resigned to standing with the other observers.
"Your majesty," Steve tipped his head toward T'Challa who gestured to them to join him.
"I am glad you're here, Captain," he said even as he redirected his gaze to the miniature collective moving about the lab.
Sadie was strongly reminded of a bee hive, watching each member of the team perform his or her specified tasks. Everyone wove around each other with easy precision as though they really were of one mind, a miniature hive so attuned to one another that half the time nobody was even watching where they were going. And at the center of it all stood Shuri, a queen bee if Sadie ever saw one, directing her workers even as she tapped away at the screen in her hand, hovering over the bed where Bucky lay.
"You okay?"
Steve's voice was so soft in her ear she almost didn't hear him. But his touch brought her back to the moment, gently easing her fingers that she'd been twisting so hard they'd gone white. The urge to overcorrect nearly got the better of her but instead of snapping her hands behind her back, she curved her fingers over Steve's palm.
"Yeah," she lied, realizing a second too late that she'd slipped into a thousand-yard stare. "I haven't seen him since my first visit so this is all-"
"A lot to process?" Steve suggested when she couldn't find the words.
Sadie evaluated Bucky's statue still form, laid out in white clothing. Silver circle-shaped sensors dotted his skin, transmitting all of the information that splayed out across the wide screens behind him. His dark hair fell away from his face and though she still found his beard jarring, she spied the softness of his mouth and even now found familiarity in the way his long eyelashes brushed his cheeks in sleep. Even then, staring at the incontrovertible evidence of Bucky being alive, it all felt too strange to be real.
"I think that's the understatement of the century." She wasn't even trying to be glib but Steve still chuckled all the same.
"Be careful what you say; it's a brand new century after all."
His poor attempt at a joke succeeded. Sadie rolled her eyes and eased her grip on his hand, dropping her arms to her sides.
Across the lab, Shuri began to double-check the placement of Bucky's sensors. She nodded in satisfaction as she worked with sure hands and Sadie realized with a jolt that she used to possess that same confidence whenever she walked into a hospital. After she finished, Shuri then retreated to a long counter behind Bucky's bed to retrieve an unusual-looking object that rested atop what appeared to be the head of a mannequin. She carefully placed the silver band across Bucky's forehead, taking care to adjust it so the large circular side covered his temple. She drew the tip of her finger across the front of the band. Bright white light ran along the edges and the circle sensor, pulsing gently to the beat of what Sadie suspected was Bucky's pulse.
A figure came to stand next to her. Out of the corner of her eye, Sadie recognized the high collar of T'Challa's black jacket and the rich embroidery at the cuffs. He tilted his head toward Shuri and Bucky.
"That device will relay Shuri's algorithm and in return relay the electrical signals from Sergeant Barnes' brain. Through it, Shuri will be able to continuously monitor him."
Sadie simply had to take T'Challa at his word.
"Shuri knows what she's doing," Steve added just as the young princess waltzed over to them.
"It's true, I do," she agreed, flashing a sunny smile at Sadie. "And Sergeant Barnes is stable and ready to go so let's get this show on the road!"
If Sadie thought she might throw up before, it was nothing compared to the way her stomach rolled in response. She didn't know what to expect and now had questions she hadn't thought to ask. Was Bucky going to feel anything? Would he be in pain? What actually would happen if things went wrong? As damaged as he already was, Sadie couldn't take the thought of him coming through even worse than before. She had half a mind to march across the lab, rip all the sensors off his body and berate everyone for taking such an extraordinary risk with him.
But then she remembered that this was Bucky's choice and, more importantly, he wasn't hers to protect, not anymore. The notion made her want to cry and she ducked her head, allowing a thick curtain of curls to shield her face while she tried to rearrange it into something less heartbroken and more passive.
By the time Sadie composed herself, Shuri had already begun.
"See the blue lights on the headband? Those indicate that the algorithm is already being transmitted." T'Challa's explanation drew her back into the moment and back to Bucky.
"It looks like nothing is happening," she remarked, tilting her head as she tried to make heads or tails of Shuri's excited fingers flying across her tablet and the myriad of her worker bees all attending to screens, checking numbers, adjusting variables and generally maintaining the thin veil of peace that rested over the entire group.
"That's a good sign. It means things are going smoothly."
Sadie took some measure of comfort in T'Challa's cool confidence. He wasn't the type of person to be easily ruffled and she figured that as long as he wasn't concerned, then there was reason to hope. Together they watched as Shuri made a few adjustments and kept a sharp eye on her patient while she continued her work. Minutes dragged on as the blue light continued flashing on the band. From where she stood, Sadie could just make out Bucky's eyes starting to move somewhat erratically behind his closed eyelids.
"He's entered a REM stage; that's good, that means his brain is active and responding."
Though T'Challa continued to explain what he knew of the process, Sadie wondered how anyone could be certain of anything at all. It wasn't like Shuri could just take a stroll through Bucky's subconscious to determine whether all of her theorizing was actually correct. Suddenly Sadie remembered Wanda and her unusual abilities. Wouldn't she have been a good person to have present when it came to this sort of thing? Though Sadie supposed it was possible Bucky would refuse that particularly invasive brand of help.
A sharp beeping sound distracted Sadie once again. Her head snapped up to the screen displaying Bucky's vitals, showing something that was at last familiar, but no less terrifying to her. In an instant, his pulse shot through the roof and his blood pressure began climbing at a rapid pace.
"Something's gone wrong," Sadie murmured. "Those numbers shouldn't do that."
The nurse in Sadie started to kick in and she took a step toward Bucky's bed, ready to intervene when Steve placed a light hand at her shoulder to stop her.
"Wait, we don't want to do anything that could upend the process."
Sadie bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. What did Steve know about things like pulse rates and blood pressure? Nothing, she reminded herself. During their time with the SSR, Steve was almost entirely useless with a med kit and wouldn't know what to do with the symptoms that Bucky presented. She started to loosen herself from his grip when all hell really did break loose.
Shuri yelled in surprise when Bucky's body gave a sharp lurch before it started to jerk.
"He's having a seizure," Sadie announced. Steve's grip on her relaxed due to the shock of Bucky's sudden change and she took her opportunity.
Without a second thought, she slipped right into nurse mode and hurried across the room. Shuri stood theere swiping frantically at her tablet while her attendants froze in surprise.
"Get him on his side!"
Sadie reached Bucky first and grasped his arm and side. He was hard to hold onto as he continued to seize and it took a great effort for her, pushing with all her might but it wasn't until two attendants grasped him from the other side of the bed that they managed to turn him.
"Someone hand me a pillow or a towel or blanket - anything!"
An attendant pressed something soft into her outstretched hand and Sadie hastily rolled up the towel and eased it under Bucky's head.
"I don't understand - this shouldn't be happening. All of my tests-"
"Can't account for the human variable," Sadie said sharply even as she watched Bucky helplessly. "No amount of practice runs in the world can completely prepare you for the real thing." She leaned over Bucky and drew gentle fingers down his arm. "Bucky? I know you can hear me. You're alright, you're alright now. Whatever's happening, it's all in your mind. You're safe."
She wasn't sure if her platitudes would actually work. Sadie was going off an untested theory of her own. Given what Shuri was trying to do - divorce Bucky's memories from the trigger words - it stood to reason that he was reliving or experiencing unpleasant memories, perhaps tripping wires connected to visceral emotions that he couldn't control in his comatose form. But a funny thing happened when she started to speak.
"Keep talking, Miss Reid. I believe he is responding to your voice," Shuri encouraged her.
Now that the spotlight was on her, Sadie felt rather exposed talking to Bucky this way. But for his sake, she did as asked because it appeared that Shuri was right. Though he continued to twitch, Bucky was no longer convulsing. His eyes continued to pulse erratically but when Sadie looked at his vitals, she was relieved to see his pulse and blood pressure sinking to normal levels.
"You've been through so much and you've been so brave," she murmured and drew her hand gingerly down his arm.
Sadie was vaguely aware that she was touching Bucky for the first time since their fated goodbye but she was too focused on stabilizing him to care. His skin was cool to the touch and clammy with a thin sheen of sweat from his ordeal. Tense muscles continued to fire just beneath his skin, sending little tremors down the length of his arm to his jittery fingers. From her vantage point, Sadie could see half of his face; his lips were moving, forming soundless words that she couldn't make out though she wished she could. There wasn't a cell in Sadie's body that didn't reach out to him, that wasn't desperate for him to know she was there for whatever her presence was worth. She spoke to him softly and prayed that her words filtered into his ears and sank deep into his subconscious, bringing to life better dreams and memories to sustain him through this process.
"It's been so long but I'm here now and I promise that I'm going to help you however I can. But first you have to get through this, Bucky - and I know you can. You've come so far to give up now. Hold on," she whispered and drew her fingers down his arm once more. "Hold on for me."
Had Sadie been paying attention to anything but the face she loved so dearly, she would have seen what everyone else in the room saw. As she pulled her hand back to his shoulder and stroked the length of his arm again, wisps of green light swirled to life from the tips of her fingers. The light was feeble and lingered only a few seconds, clinging to the surface of Bucky's skin before spreading thin and seemingly absorbing itself into his body.
Shuri's mouth fell open in soft surprise and she blinked owlishly several times before coming back to her senses. Each screen surrounding her transmitted every metric regarding Bucky's mental and physical status and they all told the same story. She released a relieved breath from her tight lungs.
"He's going to be alright now. Let's continue."
X X X
Bucky swam through a hazy stream of images. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was in a deep sleep; his mind didn't flit from memory to memory like changing the channel whenever he was awake. He couldn't make much sense or order of what his mind conjured up. At moments he thought he heard voices echoing from the deepest corners of his mind, speaking words in half a dozen different languages that he understood from years of scientists poking and prodding his tender psyche. One language, however, stood out far above all the others.
Stern and flowing, Russian now felt more like Bucky's mother tongue than any other language, even English. During the past two years, he often slipped into it without thought. He muttered in Russian to himself while keeping a low profile at markets, performing odd jobs to make just enough money to scrape by, or even the rare times he allowed himself to slink between the stacks in various libraries searching for answers in the pages of history books. There was something comfortable and miserable about his familiarity with the language; Bucky couldn't separate it from barked orders, from cruel taunts and chilling mission reports. And more than that, hearing those faint echoes stirred up a fear that chilled his blood and threatened to take his very heart and soul.
Longing.
Bucky flinched and despite his comatose state, he could feel his entire body clench in response.
No. No, this couldn't be happening to him. Not again, not after so many months of desperate attempts to bring himself under control, to free his mind of these wretched chains.
Rusted.
The words were burned into him now, eliciting a response so visceral he could feel his insides squirm. Decades of control, of being hammered into submission weighed down on him like a thousand tons. Even worse, a part of him wanted to submit; in so many ways, going blank was just easier and less painful.
Furnace.
But no! Bucky didn't want this, not anymore. He'd never wanted any of it. If he'd had his druthers he would have died in that ravine, ending his pain before it ever really began. At least then he wouldn't have had to suffer, his hands would be less bloodstained and, most importantly, nobody else he loved would have been dragged into this whole mess. Saving them pain and ensuring that he never hurt anyone again were reason enough to fight the magnetic pull to submit. Bucky didn't want to give in. He wanted his freedom.
Daybreak.
Fight this! He practically shouted into the void of his mind even as he continued to drown in the ocean of memories as dark and fathomless as the trenches of the earth itself. Bucky wanted everything to stop, he wanted stillness and quiet. More than anything he wanted to erase the faces that flashed by, too many of them strangers unfortunate enough to stand in the way of HYDRA's master plan, unwitting or not. How many of them died terrified? Bucky's gut clenched and if there was anything in his stomach it would have surely come up even in his sleep. There were too many names and too many wide eyes that only saw his hard, masked face in the end.
Seventeen.
Blood dripped from his hands. It spilled red over every facet of his life, discoloring his memories and staining who he thought he'd been. History books and museums used to paint him as a fallen soldier, a hero of the war who died too young. Bucky knew better. He knew that the perfect soldier could only be crafted from the right raw materials. It took a natural-born killer, cast in the fire and hammered time and again until he was fashioned into hardened steel, cold-blooded and ruthless. No good man could be so easily corrupted.
Benign.
Those wretched experiences leached into every corner of his mind, a poison that tainted the good that existed and corroded everything it touched. Bucky wanted to bury his fists in his eyes in a futile attempt to chase it all away but found he couldn't. His whole body felt like it was held within a vice grip, rigid even as he fought against the controlling power of these words.
Nine.
It had been nothing more than a dream, a fleeting fantasy that he could actually be free. Even though HYDRA no longer held his leash, there was no escaping it. Bucky was always going to be trapped, always at the mercy of anyone clever enough to discern these damned words.
Homecoming.
He was so tired of fighting, of running, of hiding.
Bucky just wanted it all to be over.
One.
Darkness encroached on the edges of his vision. The memories blurred one into the other, a movie reel saturated with nothing but pain and misery. What he saw was nothing but a hard childhood followed by a hard adolescence that fed directly into a world war that destroyed everything in its path. Then there was falling, impact and an endless stream of torture afterward; whether done to him or by him, it was all the same.
Bucky wanted to cry but he had no tears left. He wanted to scream into the void but he had no voice. There was nothing left. No redemption. No future. No hope.
And yet...
Freight car.
Voices echoed somewhere in the back of his mind, spilling words into the stream that fleshed out the faces and brought old personalities back to life. He could hear kids yelling out plays on a rough baseball diamond, Rebecca calling on him to stop walking so fast and wait for her, Steve defending yet another one of his brash decisions that led to yet another black eye, his mother reminding him to keep his elbows off the table, a drill sergeant hammering orders into his head - and then, from the depths of the memories he'd locked away, a sweet and slow voice that sounded closer and more real than any other.
"You've been so brave."
Though he didn't always know dreams from reality, Bucky knew for certain he'd heard those words before.
"I'm here now."
And just like that, a little spark of light drew him to the corner of his mind he always avoided because some memories were so good, so pure that it hurt worse to even think about them. The screaming and the terror died down as that little sacred space opened wider and he allowed himself this little liberty.
New images came to him, almost as clear now as they were in the moment. A wicked smile set beneath sparkling grey eyes. Musical laughter that usually followed a playful barb at his expense. Thick brunette curls that always smelled like lavender and honey even in the middle of a warzone.
An ember of warmth flickered to life in his heart. He remembered now that in between all of the brutality, there were moments of wonder and of joy that all the HYDRA soldiers the world over could never completely extinguish. Bucky remembered now. He remembered guessing states and running breathless through the streets of London. Swirling colors and raucous music filled the dance halls but he only remembered ever really being attached at the hip to one dance partner, the same partner who twined her body around his in the dead of night, all soft kisses and searching hands.
Yes, Bucky remembered. She was his anchor in the storm and the future he'd bet it all on. He remembered now that she was the reason he held out as long as he did.
"Hold on," she whispered, cutting through the haze and reminding him what was worth fighting for in the first place. "Hold on for me."
Sadie.
X X X
The recovery room was blissfully empty and quiet. Sadie wasn't certain how long it took everyone to trickle out of the room but eventually she was the only one who remained at Bucky's bedside. Peace settled over her like a favorite blanket that wrapped her up, shielded from the outside world. If only she could extend this time into eternity, she would be happy.
Bucky slept peacefully, a snow white blanket drawn over his chest and his arm resting atop it. He was paler than she remembered and, despite having spent the majority of the last two months either frozen or in a medically-induced coma, dark circles clung to the undersides of his eyes. Though there were plenty of obvious reasons to explain why Bucky seemed so different, none of them stood out to Sadie the way tiny, almost intangible details did. Setting aside his missing arm, the long hair and his beard, there was something different about Bucky that she struggled to put a finger on. At first she thought maybe it was the changes in his overall physical stature - more muscular and imposing than before - but that wasn't it. The answer was there somewhere, perhaps in the drawn quality of his face or his semi-frown as he slept. Sadie supposed she wouldn't really know until he was finally awake.
For now it was enough that he wasn't in any pain and appeared to suffer no adverse effects from Shuri's deprogramming. After his seizure subsided and his vitals stabilized, Shuri was able to continue with implementing the algorithm. One by one she isolated the trigger words etched into his mind and worked her technical magic, splitting the word from the underlying trigger, returning the word to just that, nothing more than a word. The process took far longer than Sadie expected and it was late afternoon before techs finally finished removing the sensors from Bucky's skin and moved him to a quiet recovery room. Of course, nobody would know for certain whether or not Shuri's algorithm worked until she conducted a test run after Bucky woke up.
Sadie's breath hitched in her chest. She was now one step closer to reuniting with Bucky. Though she drank in this strange but peaceful time, she didn't consider it a reunion of any kind. The mere thought of finally coming face-to-face with Bucky terrified Sadie in ways she couldn't totally fathom. After all, this was the same man who once knew all of her secrets. She wasn't certain she was really ready to face a Bucky who didn't remember all of those secrets but she also couldn't avoid it forever. Hadn't she made the decision to come to Wakanda knowing he would be here? She couldn't chicken out now.
Absently, her hand moved to his. The tips of his fingers twitched when she gathered her courage and dared to brush them with hers. Sadie withdrew her hand, swallowing a gasp of surprise. But Bucky slept on, oblivious to her presence. Sadie's shoulders sagged in relief.
Assured that he really was still completely under, she dragged her fingers over the back of his hand, over his wrist and part way up his forearm. Because Sadie still wasn't sure how Bucky reacted to being touched by anyone anymore, she decided this particular route was the safest possible. It would be hard for anyone to be upset over such an innocent touch. His skin was warm and surprisingly smooth to the touch and she reveled in it while she tried to process the fact that she was here, at Bucky's bedside, actually touching him.
Sadie lost count of the nights she cried herself to sleep after he died. In the Pacific, she'd become particularly adept at crying in silence, or waiting until she was well and truly alone before allowing herself a rare breakdown. Too many nights she'd catch herself reaching for him only to remember he was gone, breaking her all over again. Sadie tried to make every deal she could think of with God, begging to wake up from her walking nightmare, bargaining everything just for another day with Bucky, anything she could think of that might miraculously bring him back. The fact that he'd been alive and prisoner the entire time only made all of her desperate prayers that much more painful. Back then she would have given up her own life just to see him one more time.
Now that that moment was here, she couldn't even begin to know how to process all of those emotions. It took years for her to come to terms with losing Bucky. Though her grief ran the long course it eventually did subside, leaving her with a strange sense of peace about the whole thing. They'd loved each other as best as they could in the short time they shared and if Sadie never had more than that, she'd learned to cherish what she got. But sitting here and now, watching over his bedside as though not a day had passed between their parting, Sadie realized that she hadn't moved on, not really. Because as she tracked the rise and fall of his chest and pressed a finger to the inside of his wrist to count the beats of his pulse, she knew that she loved him just as ardently now as she ever had.
Accepting that she still loved him was the easy part. Figuring out what to do with that love was a different thing altogether. They couldn't just pick up where they left off, of that much Sadie was certain. Everything hinged on Bucky now and what he would think about the news of her sudden arrival. For her part, Sadie wasn't sure what she was even going to say to him when they were finally face-to-face. There wasn't an Emily Post article for how to greet your ex-fiance seven decades after both of your supposed deaths.
"Oh Bucky," she whispered, hoping that maybe he would hear her and understand. "How did we end up like this? I hope you know."
Bucky didn't answer, though she didn't expect him to. He continued to recover, deep in his well-earned sleep.
Someone else, however, did happen to hear her. "I am certain he will have all the answers, Miss Reid."
Sadie's back went ramrod straight and her mouth fell open in surprise. Shuri stood in the doorway with a distinguished older woman who Sadie remembered to be her mother and the queen, Ramonda. Both women carried offerings, including a tray of food and a large pitcher of a sweet-looking light amber liquid. They entered as Sadie started to stand, mortified that she'd been caught in such a vulnerable moment.
"Keep your seat, Miss Reid," Ramonda ordered in a gentle voice and Sadie sank back down, still unsure of what to make of the situation. "Surely you must be famished. Or have you not looked at the time?"
"The time?" Sadie echoed, blinking owlishly as she took in the room.
Through the windows on the far wall of the room, she could see the faintest sliver of the sun sinking down into the horizon. She started and at the same moment, her stomach gave a telltale growl. How could so much time have slipped by?
"Oh, I didn't realize it was so late," her voice sounded far away.
"I kept waiting for you to come out but when you didn't, we decided to come to you," Shuri explained cheerfully and set the tray of food on the counter behind Sadie. "I thought you were supposed to be eating regularly to regain your strength?"
"I am," Sadie replied slowly, thinking of all of the doctor's orders she was bound to follow for one reason or another. "It's an old habit - I used to go entire shifts at the hospital without eating or thinking about it."
"You're not at the hospital anymore, Miss Reid. And nobody is expecting you to guard Sergeant Barnes' bedside. I can assure you he's perfectly safe here."
A crimson flush burned in Sadie's cheeks and down the back of her neck. Shuri wasn't mollified by Sadie's embarrassment or her mother's gentle admonishment. Instead, she plucked a slice of sweet pear right off Sadie's plate and bit it in half. Sadie turned back to Bucky, her eyes glazing over the details of his handsome face, both familiar and novel.
"I couldn't leave him," she admitted in a soft, sad voice.
A shiver slipped down her spine. When Sadie blinked, she saw glimpses of the snowy clearing where a horseshoe of tents backed up to the trees and a bumpy road extended out toward the mountains. She could still remember the last smile Bucky gave her, the last fleeting glance over his shoulder and the feeling that, no matter what trouble he got into, Bucky would come back as he always had. A vice clenched down on her brittle heart and she could feel it splintering under the enormous pressure of her grief.
"Of course you couldn't." Though Ramonda's voice didn't carry even a touch of her mother's syrupy southern drawl, she reminded Sadie of Norma Reid nonetheless. "All of this must feel like a dream to you."
"In a way though I think it's more surreal. I've imagined seeing Bucky again a thousand times but nothing I could invent or dream up comes close to this." Bucky's chest hitched once in his sleep. Without a second thought, Sadie drew her thumb over the back of his hand. Bucky settled. "I just wish there was more I could do to help him."
"You saved him earlier today."
Both Sadie and Ramonda looked to Shuri. Though Sadie hardly knew the young princess, she'd gleaned enough to know that she rarely made errors and hated admitting any fault. Sadie's mind rewound back to the morning, to Bucky seizing on the table and his vitals taking a sharp nosedive.
"It's another old habit. Once a nurse, always a nurse. I never could see someone suffer if I could help it."
"I'm glad," Shuri admitted as she grabbed a second chair and dragged it over to Sadie. She sank down next to her and reached for Sadie's hand. "As you said, all of my calculations couldn't account for the human variable. If you hadn't used your power to stabilize Sergeant Barnes-" her voice trailed off but Sadie filled in the blanks easily enough.
Her mind, however, stuck itself on something else. "I didn't use my powers-I don't even know how they work, if they work."
Shuri frowned. She lifted Sadie's hand and turned her palm towards the ceiling. "You must have been concentrating too hard to notice. But everyone else in the room saw it. Green light left your fingers and hovered over Sergeant Barnes's face before sinking into him. Almost as soon as that happened, he was fine. Maybe you didn't do it consciously but you did use your enhancements."
"But I-how could I do something without even realizing it?"
"How could your body heal itself from your ordeals without you consciously processing it? How could your mind seal off an entire part of your memories? There are many questions surrounding you, Miss Reid. And I intend to help you find the answers."
Sadie had never met a young woman quite like Shuri. There was potentially very little for her to gain out of helping Sadie unravel these mysteries and yet there she was, so confident in her skills that she not only convinced Bucky to put his fragile mind in her young hands but now she had Sadie eating from her palm as well. Nothing seemed impossible to Shuri and Sadie found herself drawn to that optimism. She glanced back to Bucky and fought the urge to stroke his face. If Shuri could help mend decades of forced brainwashing and programming, then surely she could help Sadie put her own pieces together.
"That sounds wonderful."
X X X
Bucky blinked into the glorious morning. Wakandan countryside stretched in every direction he looked, the golden grass dotted with green trees on the horizon, set beneath the bluest sky he'd ever seen. A rough road cut through the savannah, though Bucky had no idea where it led to.
He followed Shuri, feeling ungainly without his left arm. In all reality, he didn't miss his metal arm in the slightest except for when it came to the awkwardness of his gait or to the strands of hair that escaped the knot at the back of his head. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a litany of questions arose about who dressed him, who tied his hair back, and what did a guy have to do for some breakfast? But the most pressing question came to his lips first.
"Where are we?"
Shuri glanced over her shoulder and grinned. She ambled along two paces ahead but slowed to walk next to him. "About ten miles outside of the city. My brother and I both thought it would be better if you woke up somewhere quiet."
"How long was I out?"
"It's been about three days since I finished deprogramming you. Before that it took me about two weeks to finish enough test runs."
Bucky wasn't sure how he felt about all of that but it certainly explained his near-insatiable hunger. An old memory flickered to life of eating breakfast at the table in his family's apartment. He wouldn't mind his mom's cooking right about now-or anyone's really. For the last two years, Bucky had to content himself with his own cooking and almost anyone and anything had to be better than his pathetic attempts.
As they walked, Bucky expected Shuri to eventually spin off into the details of his deprogramming, touting her remarkable skill and excitedly outlining the next steps in her grand plan. Instead, she was calm and quiet. A small smile played at her lips but for the most part, she seemed happy to bask in the morning. Bucky realized with a start that she was perfectly comfortable in his company. Not once since their first meeting had she flinched or eyed him warily. Shuri wasn't afraid of him, even alone in the middle of the African savannah.
"Where are we going now?"
Her smile widened and she tipped her chin upward, directing his attention back to the road. "I said there was much for you to learn; I didn't say it would all be from me."
Steve stood just off the road, hands shoved in his pockets. He grinned even while he squinted into the morning sun. "'Bout time you woke up. I was about to go dump some cold water on you."
Despite himself and his lingering confusion and exhaustion, Bucky grinned. "That's a good way to get decked."
Steve's broad smile was at once finally familiar and entirely welcome. "I'm glad to see you're feeling better."
"I am. Thanks."
"No need to thank me, I didn't do anything. It was all Shuri."
Shuri nodded to both men before she backed away to give them privacy. Steve clapped him on the shoulder and Bucky was pleased with himself when he didn't feel the immediate urge to jerk away. At Steve's urging, they turned off the road and down a narrow trail that opened up at the edge of a large pond.
Though Bucky had hoped that Steve would come back for his deprogramming, he hadn't really expected it to happen. These days Steve was even busier than ever and had an entire group of friends and comrades who depended on him. Besides that, Steve had already done enough for him - put everything on the line and lost everything because of him. Bucky couldn't ask or expect him to give anything more and yet here he was, breathing in the same warm air and staring out over the same pristine landscape. He looked sort of funny sitting down on a flattened area of grass right near the water's edge. Most of Bucky's memories placed Steve in the middle of Brooklyn. Despite his (once) squeaky-clean public image, Steve was about as far removed from country-boy as most could get.
"You gonna stand there all day?"
Bucky managed to maneuver himself into a sitting position, struggling slightly with his balance and the Wakandan garb that someone - he was still unsure who - dressed him in.
For a long moment, Steve said nothing. Bucky listened to the water gently lap the shore and the grass rustle in the wind. Every so often, he heard the whistle of some nearby insect or a bird call from the trees.
"How are you really feeling?"
There was something embedded in Steve's tone that Bucky recognized. It was the same questioning, suspicious tone he used to use whenever Bucky tried to lie about getting a better grade than him on a test or being out all night with a date. Somehow Steve could always see through his too-cool veneer and he was never afraid to demand the truth.
"Better," he answered, happy to finally be earnest in this regard. "Like a weight's been lifted off my shoulders."
"Good, that's- that's really great, Buck. And you're getting along fine without-" his voice dropped off somewhat uncomfortably and he gestured to his shoulder.
Bucky's hand strayed to the blue fabric swathed over his shoulder and the baseplate for his arm. "There's no love loss there, trust me."
"I thought so. I guess it wasn't such a bad thing Tony blasted it off after all."
That was, potentially, the only good thing Bucky could think of to come from that fight except perhaps the fact that he ended up here. Without his metal arm and the blood-soaked memories attached to it, Bucky felt just a little less dangerous and a little more like his old self.
"And your memories? Things are still coming back?"
Now it was Bucky's turn to be suspicious. He was surprised at how easily he recognized Steve's hesitation as caginess, as though he was dancing around a particular subject with no idea how to actually approach it. A frown started to tug at the corners of his mouth. If he recalled correctly - and Bucky knew he did - Steve usually acted this way when he was about to bring up something really personal, something private that Bucky preferred to keep to himself. His stomach twisted itself into a knot. There were plenty of dark secrets he preferred to keep locked away and there was no telling which one Steve might want to try and unlock.
"It's a steady stream, yeah. Why?"
"Just curious."
"Is there something in particular you wanted to talk about?"
Steve wouldn't meet his eye. Instead he stared out toward the water, plucking a thick blade of grass from the earth. He began to shred the blade between his fingers. Bucky's unease only grew.
"What about the war? How much do you remember about that?"
"I dunno, most of it. I remember all of the big stuff anyway."
"And the people?"
Bucky's knotted, tense stomach sank through his body somewhere into the earth below. A bitter taste swelled in his mouth that he felt he had to unstick just to reply. "You mean like the guys in my old unit? Dum Dum, Lovitz, Meyers? Sure, I remember all those guys. The guys in the Commandos too."
Steve nodded and then swallowed hard. There was a tightness to his face now, drawing his mouth into a tired line and narrowing his eyes while he continued to stare off into the distance. Bucky's heart began to thump harder, rising higher and higher into his throat. He knew exactly what Steve was going to ask before he said it and yet, as soon as Steve asked the next question Bucky still felt like he'd been punched twice in the gut.
"What about Sadie Reid? Do you remember her?"
Bucky's throat closed in over itself, forming a hard lump that refused to do anything. He wasn't even entirely sure why he had such a strong reaction to hearing someone say Sadie's name aloud to him for the first time in God-only-knew how long. It wasn't as though he'd figured out how to untangle his thoroughly confused thoughts and emotions when it came to his former flame. But there was something about her that caused an instant, visceral reaction.
"Yeah," he managed to say around the lump in his throat. "I remember Sadie."
"So then you know about what happened to her after the war ended."
Bucky now knew exactly where Steve was dragging this conversation. His heart tripped over a beat. "After those memories came back, I looked her up in a few history books. She started her charity and then disappeared."
"Disappeared?" Steve questioned, raising a disbelieving eyebrow. "Or she was kidnapped?"
"Steve," there was a gentle warning in Bucky's voice, practically begging his friend not to go there.
"I think we both know there's more to it than that."
What was Bucky supposed to say in response to that? It wasn't like he could just come out and tell Steve every wretched detail. Bucky could only describe his life after falling off that train as a never-ending horror show but some things were just too horrible for him to even acknowledge.
When it came to the truth, however, Steve was like a dog with a bone.
"You know, you could have told me you were looking for her," he persisted, his Brooklyn accent coming on thick. "Or at least mentioned that she was still alive."
"What makes you think-"
"Oh come on, Buck. You're really gonna tell me it's a coincidence I found you in Romania less than three hours away from where she was found?"
Bucky gaped at him for far too long. His ears rang with the news and it took him an embarrassingly long time to string together a coherent sentence. When he finally did find the words they came out blunt and hard, betraying his utter shock and then fear. "It's not like we had a lot of time to catch up before I landed here."
"But you were looking for Sadie," Steve rounded back to his original point.
There wasn't much Bucky wouldn't give to have Steve drop the subject or at least stop beating around the bush and tell him what was going on. But Bucky figured that he wasn't going to get much without giving intel in return.
"I didn't say anything because I wasn't even sure she was still alive. For all I knew, I was just chasing a ghost."
Steve watched him closely and seemed to choose his words just as carefully. "So, why did you?"
"Once I started getting my memories back, I just-" Bucky blew out a sigh and shook his head. Somewhere deep down, he knew he could trust Steve. They'd been confidants once; hell, they used to be as close as brothers and always spoke candidly with each other, but things were different now. Opening up to anyone meant being vulnerable and Bucky learned the hard way there were consequences to exposing the chinks in his armor. Overriding the impulse to shut down and end this conversation was damn near impossible and only sheer curiosity to learn what Steve knew got him to continue. "I needed to do something. Finding out what happened to Sadie and tracking her down was one thing I could fix. When you found me, I was following the last lead I had."
Steve nodded and mercifully didn't push him any further. "It turned out to be a good lead. A group of backpackers found an old HYDRA storage bunker in Buceggi National Park a few weeks ago and discovered Sadie in cryofreeze there."
Bucky's mouth parted in soft surprise. Though he'd seen the writing on the wall, the further Steve dragged him down this particular avenue and hearing the news that he'd been so close was jarring and a little disappointing. If only Helmut Zemo had kept his scheming to himself a couple of days longer or chosen a different way to tear the Avengers apart, Bucky might have been the one to find that bunker and not some random hikers. Though he still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that; in all the time he'd been looking for Sadie, he never quite figured out what he was going to do if and when he found her.
"Alive?"
"Yeah, though that's kind of a miracle on its own."
Bucky swallowed the impulse to snort in humorless laughter. Steve had no idea how miraculous her being alive truly was. For a moment, Steve contented himself to shred another blade of grass between his fingers while he chewed over these new revelations. Perhaps he was even waiting for Bucky to say more, but he wasn't even sure where to begin.
Steve saved him the trouble. "Do you know how she ended up in deep freeze?"
"No," said Bucky, relieved he could at least be truthful about that much. "I don't."
"That's a shame. We were all hoping you'd be able to fill in a lot of big blanks."
"We?" Bucky latched onto the pronoun immediately. Though Steve could have meant himself and a whole host of people, he knew exactly who 'we' meant. "You've seen her?"
At long last, Steve's mouth formed a smile. He squinted out into the glorious morning as though satisfied by the sudden urgency in Bucky's voice that even he didn't quite understand. In the long run, what did it ultimately matter to him whether or not Steve had interacted with a woman he hadn't seen since their final parting seven decades ago?
"Yeah. And you can too, if you want."
"She's-" Bucky's voice caught on the enormous lump that formed in his throat. "She's here. In Wakanda."
"Been here a couple of weeks actually, as King T'Challa's first official state guest."
Someone could have knocked Bucky over with a feather. Whatever he'd expected from this conversation, that revelation was not it. After nearly two years of tracking down disappointing leads, fruitless searching and cleaning up other messes along the way, Sadie was alive and awake and in the same country. Hell, they were probably less than twenty miles apart if Bucky had to wager a guess. She was the one mess he felt duty-bound above all others to clean up, the one who started it all.
"Look, it's a lot to take in, I get it. And nobody's expecting you to know how to feel about all this or pick up where you left off but-" Steve paused, sparing a critical glance for Bucky. "You do want to see her, don't you?"
In the end, there was only one answer. Bolstered by this small amount of reassurance and knowing that saying no would raise more questions than he was comfortable answering, Bucky drummed up a weak smile.
"Yeah, of course I do."
X X X
A mere three hours later Bucky found himself standing in an enormous solarium, nestled at the far end of the palace. The glass walls and ceiling allowed copious amounts of sunlight to pour over the spectacular floor, bouncing off the shining mosaic tiles laid in the marble in intricate patterns that wove around the flowering bushes and trees that stretched overhead. A shallow reflecting pool took up the center of the room, the water so still that its surface served as a perfect mirror to the surroundings.
Bucky could see himself in the water, though he tried not to look. More than once he had to pull his hand back to keep from fidgeting with the rich blue fabric swathed over his shoulder. The cover contrasted well with the simple cream colored shirt he wore, the left sleeve cut away and neatly hemmed to accommodate his missing arm. Bucky felt strange wearing the clothes that someone left out for him; when he was younger his family couldn't afford nice fabric and on the run he wore whatever he could rustle up at thrift stores or anywhere he could keep a low profile and spend as little as possible. HYDRA's only concern with his clothing was utility. Luxury, like the almost unbearably soft shirt he wore, wasn't something he'd ever been accustomed to.
Fighting a frown, he started to rake his fingers through his hair but stopped at the last second, lest he upset the neat job Shuri did. She'd hovered over her patient upon his return, insisting that he needed to keep his hair out of his face. Going with the flow was far easier than fighting the headstrong princess and so Bucky allowed her to twist the top layer of his long hair back.
All-in-all, he looked better than he had in years, perhaps even decades - though there was nothing he could do about his missing arm. He supposed that Sadie wouldn't care. She'd treated dozens of amputees during the war and Bucky couldn't remember her ever lamenting their misfortune or flinching away from their sudden loss of mobility.
Besides, when it came to Sadie Reid and their strange situation, the lack of his left arm was the least of Bucky's worries.
While he waited for her, he tried to come up with something to say that wasn't completely devoid of feeling or mind-numbingly stupid. What was he supposed to say to the woman he'd once promised to love forever only to subsequently forget she even existed? There was too much history for a simple hello or even small talk. Perhaps Bucky didn't know how he really felt about Sadie and her reemergence in his life but he knew he couldn't treat her like a stranger.
Not for the first time, Bucky avidly wished that none of this were happening. He liked to think about Sadie the way she was and the way they were. Though the edges of the war and plenty of the finer details were still hazy, Bucky could remember the way Sadie did her best not to look at him during briefings or her sleepy smile when he met her at the hospital to walk her back after a long shift. Whenever Bucky tossed and turned on his thin, uncomfortable mattress he would keep his eyes shut and try to recall the way Sadie buried her face against his shoulder while she slept or how her hair felt tickling his cheek in the early morning. Preserving the image of Sadie spinning around on the dance floor mattered far more than recapturing every last minute. Holding onto the picture of her still young and full and undamaged helped assuage his ravaged heart and just a sliver of his guilt.
He caught sight of his reflection in the pool and frowned. There was no telling what she made of his altered appearance. Bucky wondered if Sadie also held onto the past, casting it in a golden light that washed out the imperfections. Did she want him as he had been? The smooth-talking soldier who liked to sneak up behind her when she wasn't paying attention? Bucky wasn't sure that any part of that man remained. Skills such as flirting and dancing disappeared, traded away for new languages and fighting techniques. In his former life, he'd learned to get what he wanted through charm and sheer force of will. As the right hand of HYDRA, he did what everyone else wanted; he submitted through brute force and a sickening control over his cracked, fragile mind.
He couldn't imagine there was anything left of him that anyone would want even if he was willing to let someone in. Somehow he doubted even Sadie Reid could pierce his armor and for that, he felt bad. Steve assured him that she had no particular expectations; after all, apparently Sadie was dealing with troubles of her own in the new world.
"This was a mistake," he muttered to himself.
There was nothing he could give her worth having. Try as he might to spark a familiar old feeling, he found the well of his emotion bone dry. Bucky knew that he once loved Sadie, but that was then. That man was long gone. Trying to drum up those old feelings felt like a farce, a hollow attempt at scraping together some semblance of who he was before HYDRA hammered him into a monster. In the here and now, all he could conjure was the longing for better times and a basic flicker of attraction upon seeing her picture and recalling her beautiful face. Bucky wanted to still love Sadie but he couldn't. There was simply too much time, too much trauma, and far too much regret where she was concerned. Sadie deserved better than that and, quite frankly, so did he.
Bucky thought perhaps the best course of action was to slip away and postpone this meeting but the sound of the door opening behind him derailed his thoughts. A soft voice floated across the room. He instantly recognized the slightly smoky tone that tempered the syrupy southern accent. In all the weeks and months he tried to put the pieces of his life together, he'd never been able to properly hear the echo of that voice, though it wasn't for a lack of trying. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. He spun around and in an instant every last thought of running away fell right out of his head.
"Hello, Bucky. I heard you were looking for me."
A/N: I swear on my life that the next chapter features the reunion. It also features more deprogramming and some other stuff. I think. I dunno, I'm only fully outlined up to here LOL.
Loved it? Liked it? Can't believe I still exist? Can't believe I'm actually just that mean to leave you hanging like this? I would love to know any and all thoughts! Much love – Kappa.