Chapter 12.
The Return.
Bucky eyed the table apprehensively as they entered the lab.
Shuri put her hand on his shoulder, squeezed, "Do not worry. We are not doing that. I have something else in mind for you." She led him through another doorway, into a room with a reclined dental chair. "It does not have restraints, so please keep your arms and legs to yourself."
Bucky was weary to be alone with Shuri. He would never forget waking up in that metal room, the walls painted with blood, the fear his behavior had created in her. She thought he would feel safer if it was just the two of them, that perhaps the sterile environment and the armed guards had contributed to the failures of previous tests.
Bucky didn't have the heart to tell her that he never felt safe.
He was shaking as he got into the seat. His chest was tight. He had made so much progress since A'di kidnapped him in the city, and this lab threatened to tear it all down. He had to remind himself, again, that this was what he wanted. It was his dream. It was the first real step he could take to being a whole person again.
Shuri spent ten minutes attaching sensors to his head and chest, setting up monitors, and running numbers on the hologram that projected from her wrist.
"I am going to say the words that activate you, but not in sequence," Shuri said.
Ayo entered the room, appearing incredulous, "Do not."
"It will not activate him," Shuri said, glancing back. "Also, this is a closed lab."
"The door was open."
"I was being figurative."
Bucky had not seen Ayo in over a month, maybe two. She found him in the northern market when he was at the bottom of his spiral, when there was nothing alive inside of him. She had asked what he was eating, where he had slept the night before, and whatever he said seemed to make her sad. He could remember her frown. She had given him money, food, clothes, like she did every time she hunted him down. It was the worst he had been. Maybe she was the one who called A'di.
Ayo was giving him a curious, searching look now.
"Maybe you should get more Dora in here," Bucky said.
Shuri cut in, "If you wish, but I have faith. So should you."
She consulted her monitors, and a low buzzing started up in his head. Shuri circled him, making adjustments, wiggling wires. She add a couple to his chest, over his heart, murmuring to herself, "Heartbeat stable… cortisol markedly lower…"
Ayo appeared beside his chair, surveying the machinery. "How are you, James?"
It was not a question he expected from her, but her concern was genuine, touching. He said, "Better than I was. I'm sorry if I was…"
He had not imagined, a year ago, that she could look at him with such sympathy. She put her hand on his shoulder, said, "Apologies are unnecessary."
"Hands off my patient," Shuri said jokingly, and then seriously, "No, really, you are in the way. I am going to start now."
Ayo hovered nearby. Shuri took a seat beside Bucky, a clipboard on her lap. It must have had the words written down, but she knew them by heart now.
Bucky closed his eyes. "Are you sure about this?"
"I am sure."
And then, in Russian, she said, "Daybreak."
Bucky shuddered as the word rolled through him. A glimpse of freedom had given him a crippling fear of control. It was different when she started out of sequence. He recognized the word and its power, but there was no fist closing around his mind.
Shuri put her hand over his, "Good, good. I am seeing what I expected. What I want to do with this first session is obtain data on each of the words. I will map your brain's responses and develop a roadmap to target the areas of strongest association. In theory, I will be able to remove your connection to each word out of sequence, and so eliminate the combined meaning of the words."
And then she said, "One."
It went on like that until all of the words had been spoken in a random order. Bucky was uneasy, but otherwise unaffected by them.
"I think this is the way," Shuri said, sliding back in her chair, opening several medical screens on the monitors. "We will convene for multiple sessions until I am confident I have enough data to target the associations. How was that for you? Do you feel alright?"
Bucky nodded, though the general atmosphere of the lab, it seemed, would always make him nervous. "Yeah. That was okay."
She had a warm, happy smile. "I think we have found the answer. It may be a matter of weeks now."
XxXxX
She had this gravity in her voice, every word a thunderclap.
"I have finished. You are healed."
Bucky lay still, silent, eyes closed. He was reluctant to open them, to come back into reality. He had been lying there for hours, listening to jazz music, trying to keep his mind empty for the treatment. If he stayed like that, if he kept himself from hoping that what she said was true, he couldn't be disappointed.
Shuri put her hand on his shoulder, "Bucky?"
He said, "Are you sure?"
"I am sure."
Bucky opened his eyes, finding Shuri smiling down at him. He stretched, tried to reacclimate to the private lab they had been using for the treatment. Shuri had slowly been making changes to put him at ease, adding paintings to the walls, a recliner in the corner. It was fuller every time he came back, every time she dug around in his head trying to disconnect the words in his memories. It was almost comfortable now, and at the least, familiar.
He said, "How long was that?"
"Six hours." Shuri slid her chair away, going through the ritual she had perfected every day for the past two weeks. She pushed monitors away, started pulling wires from his chest. "You were so still, I thought you might be sleeping."
Bucky tried to sit up, but she put her hand on his shoulder. "No, no. You have wires in your brain. Please stay in the chair."
He'd forgotten about that. Shuri had been experimenting with numbing him in preparation for inserting the wires, but when it came time to do it, she tripled the amount she had settled on. She was afraid of hurting him. Bucky lost feeling in his entire head, spent an hour being fascinated by blinking with no sensation, missing her drilling holes in the back of his skull to stick things to various parts of his brain. He still couldn't feel the wires.
Ayo spoke from the doorway, "You should have shaved his head. It is unruly."
Shuri stood behind him, wiggling wires. "I am removing them now. Stay still."
"I can't feel it."
"Your brain does not have nociceptors."
"Oh."
When she was done, she prodded the back of his head. "Fascinating. It has been six hours and your tissue is already healing. I am debating whether I should cover the holes I made in your skull… It is possible they will heal on their own. I must take samples."
Bucky sat through another hour of her entertaining herself with samples of his bones and the data she had collected from the session. He sat on the edge of the chair, twisting his arm, working the stiffness away.
Ayo came over, peeling a spot of glue from his forehead and examining it, "You have turned him pink, my princess. I am not sure how many layers of skin he has left."
Shuri glanced over, worried, and then sighed, "Stop teasing him. You two are impossible."
"I didn't do anything to her," Bucky said.
Ayo scoffed, "Yesterday, you-"
Shuri interrupted, "Did neither of you hear me? I said that you were healed, Bucky, and you have given no reaction."
He said, "You said that yesterday, and then took it back."
Shuri winced. "Yes, this time I mean it." She became very serious, standing by his chair, hope in her eyes, "I think it is time to test it in earnest."
The tightness in his chest returned with a vengeance. "Are you sure?"
"We cannot know until we try."
Bucky glanced toward the doorway. The table was in the other room. He noticed a week ago that it was vibranium now, that the straps were lined with the stuff, that the glass observation area was fortified. Shuri had been preparing for this.
Ayo put her hand on the top of his head, "I have a suggestion. I think there is a place that this might go better."
Shuri pressed her lips, "I cannot monitor his response in another location."
"We will go alone," Ayo said. "I can handle him."
It had been a long time, but Bucky thought of that night on the mountain, when he sat watching the stars. He felt safe there. He refused to leave. Maybe she was thinking of it, too.
"I am not sure…" Shuri said, crossing her arms. "My brother would not approve."
Ayo said something Bucky never thought he would hear from a Dora.
"Your brother is not here to give his opinion."
Shuri stared at Ayo with wide eyes, first uncertain, and then appreciative. She looked older again, wise beyond her years. "Yes, that is true." And then to Bucky, "Are you okay with this?"
Bucky was watching Ayo, trying to decipher her motives. He wondered what she was thinking, why she would put herself at risk. Part of him wanted to argue that he could handle the table one last time. He could take the fear for the promise of freedom. But the other part of him, the louder voice, wanted to be as far from the lab as possible.
And he trusted Ayo, despite their rocky start. She had been present for every session with Shuri, watching over him. Her presence was familiar, safe.
He said, "Yes."
Ayo nodded, with some finality. "We will go tonight, then."
As he was getting up, Shuri put her hand over his heart. "Have faith. I know this will work."
XxXxX
A lively fire burned in a nearby brazier, providing a wild light in the clearing. Just over the trees, miles and miles away, the glow of the Golden City persisted. But in the other direction, it seemed the rainforest went on forever. Dense, dark leaves, twisted limbs, ominous grunts and growls.
Bucky was glad the stars were out. They persisted through the braziers, the torches, the glow of the city. He watched them, held onto the way they looked, the wonder they stirred in him.
When she was done lighting the fires, Ayo said, "What do you like about the stars?" Her voice was soft, kind, curious.
He had a new memory, brought on by that question.
"When I was a kid, my dad took me out of the city. I was probably five, maybe six. We went so far away that you couldn't even see the buildings. He was in the army, between tours. He never got to see real stars until he sailed off the first time. So when he got home he wanted me to see them, too, I guess."
Ayo said, "Did you?"
"Yeah." He pressed a smile, trying to hide his tension.
She said, "It is time."
Bucky was stiff. He stared into the fire, determined to make this work. He was trying to have faith, like Shuri said. "You sure about this?"
Ayo was across the fire now, the light flickering on her dark face. "I won't let you hurt anyone." She understood his fears, his anxiety. She had seen them manifest many times. Ayo had seen the absolute worst of him, the darkness and weakness laid bare. Somehow it came through her voice, through her eyes.
She began speaking the words.
Bucky reacted to them, grasped at them. "It's not gonna work," he said, a tremor in his voice. He was losing the calm he had experienced in the city – or shutting it away, maybe. He wanted to keep it safe from this, separate from this.
Each word evoked the memories that clouded his mind. Blood and violence. Scared faces. Lives in his hands. But as she went on, as the desperation to escape reemerged, so did the good memories. He saw a skinny kid getting his ass kicked in an alley. A hero, holding that shield, refusing to give up even when his life was on the line. He saw his mom smiling, remembered her face, the way her voice sounded.
Ayo said the last word, and Bucky braced himself.
Nothing happened.
Seconds passed.
He wasn't ready for the burst of emotion that took over. Tears rolled down his cheeks, burning, clouding his vision. It was impossible, inconceivable, but the words echoed harmlessly in his head. He remembered them, understood them, but he was not controlled by them.
"You are free," Ayo said, smiling.
Bucky looked up at her, unbelieving, waiting for the hammer to fall and reveal that this was all some fever dream.
She repeated, "You are free."
He cried. He put his face in his hand, unable to cope. He never believed that Shuri could do it – not fully. Even when he ran away from Hydra the first time, he knew that there was a string in his head that anyone could pull if they had the stupid book. But the string was gone now.
He was not a marionette anymore.
It was everything he wanted, more than he could have dreamed. He found a smile that he had lost decades ago, felt a weight lift off of his chest.
You are free.
XxXxX
Bucky stepped out of the car, finding Khemba looking the same as the last time he saw it. Stout mud-clay huts spread across a hill, between a dense rainforest and a lake. It was just as quiet, just as calm. His heart swelled to see it.
Shuri wrapped her arms around him, sighing, "I wish you would live in the city."
He said, "How long can I stay here?"
"As long as you want."
"I mean, in Wakanda. I don't think the world is going to forget about me anytime soon."
"You were innocent of that bombing."
"I'm not innocent of anything else."
She frowned, pulling away to poke him in the chest. "You are too hard on yourself."
"I'm just being honest."
Ayo came around the car, narrowing her eyes as a child ran across their path. He was on his way to the schoolhouse, no doubt to bring the news that the White Wolf had returned. It was midday, probably the middle of a lesson.
He wondered if A'di was back yet. She was called away on a mission with Nakia when he began his work with Shuri – he told her he would be fine, but he missed her.
Shuri hugged him again, briefly, and said, "You always have a place in the Citadel, if you choose to come back. But I will respect your wishes to live quietly here."
"Thank you. For everything."
She smiled.
Ayo had no jabs, no insults, no sarcasm. She put her hand on his shoulder and said, "Be at peace, White Wolf. Forgive yourself. You have earned it."
He realized he had found a friend in her.
When they were gone, Bucky went to see Imo. As he rose out of the dark pit A'di had found him in, feelings of guilt started burrowing in. He had left Imo here on her own. He had left Ushiwoh, his shadow.
Imo was alone in her head, kneading a lump of dough. It had banana slices in it. He expected a sandal to be thrown his way. When she looked up, he said, "I'm sorry I was-"
She stood, hobbled over, and hugged him. Bucky was not a hugger, but the women who had come into his life this past year were – apart from Ayo. Something was different about Imo. She reminded him of someone, maybe a grandparent, the memory just out of reach.
When she let him go, she fluffed his shirt, nodded, and told him to wash the pans in the river.
XxXxX
Bucky sat by the lake, appreciating the sound of the water, the insects, the morning birdcalls.
A'di was coming slowly up the shore, wearing the same violet dress she had worn when they jumped off that waterfall. It was ruffled at the bottom, dotted with gems, the collar patterned with zigzags. She was out of place again, even among the villagers.
She sat beside him, "What are you doing, my wolf?"
Bucky said, "I'm thinking."
"Did you sleep last night?"
"A little." It was not much, but losing the threat of control had eased some of his nightmares. He was allowed to rest for a few precious hours before they returned. He felt better, stronger, more stable.
She plucked a nearby reed, toying with it, "It has been almost a week now. How do you feel?"
"I feel… better."
A'di said, "I was just speaking with Uhirwa this morning, and he is joining the class for a lesson this afternoon. Perhaps I will be able to retire despite the two of you, after all."
It was quiet there, peaceful. Bucky lay on his back, watching clouds.
"You were right," he said, when A'di was halfway through making a tiny basket from the reeds.
She looked over, tipping her head, "You will have to elaborate."
"You said getting the words out of my head wouldn't fix everything. You were right. I barely feel different."
"It did not fix everything, but if you had seen yourself a few months ago, you would not doubt its effect on you. You have life in your eyes. It is something I was worried I might never get to see again." She showed him the basket, which was only the size of her palm.
He thought of himself wandering alone through the city, aimless, empty.
A'di smiled, making that version of him fade into memory.
She said, "You are free."
And he believed her.
THE END.