CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO—February 2039

The sound of her blood pumping rang loud as a siren while Sam bounded down the corridors of the palace. She heard it all when Missy tapped into the team's comms. That amount of electricity…she didn't know what his new arm could truly endure attached to original tissue. Sam planned for the worst when she snagged vials from her room, yelling at Missy to go 'ultra dark,' as she called it. To think there was evidence on Missy of an obvious mistake, something she'd missed, Sam was too ashamed; Missy would have to hide it, and she was programmed to erase herself if it wasn't Sam who returned. With any luck, and a little faith in her own intelligence, that would never happen.

Several prominent members of Wakandan nobility and other staff stared as she barreled past, clutching a small velvet pouch. She had to get outside to the landing pad as quickly as possible. Just as she skidded around the corner to the great gallery, the one offering a view of the concrete pad and the fields beyond, Iron Man landed with a thud, indelicately dropping Captain Barnes onto the hard ground. For a moment, Sam hesitated at the door. If she couldn't fix the malfunction in Bucky's arm, her father would be right there to witness it. Her chance would be over, and it may have already been gone if this had cost them their fight.

This might be her entire legacy: ruining a soldier's body and poisoning her own. That's all Tony Stark would ever know about her, and Bucky would never forgive her. Sam's arms shook when she pulled the grand door open enough to squeeze through. Shuri's medical team hustled across the pad from a different direction, so Iron Man stood facing away, calling out what had happened.

The wind took half of his words. "—arm is stuck in—looping the strike—of Thor—" Tony's suit seemed to jump awkwardly, moving too robotically to be functioning properly. Sam took her chance. While the medics babbled in confusion, unable to get Iron Man to understand or turn around, she jumped over to Bucky's left. The residual charge had dissipated; he didn't shock her. She started trying to unbuckle his strapped jacket. Bucky jerked around, muffling screams for a few seconds before letting out a growl, then stuffing what noise he could back behind excruciating, jagged breaths. Sam's weak fingers stalled on the thick leather and icy metal from his high-altitude transport.

"You have to stop flailing," Sam tried, "I have to get to the shoulder." Bucky rolled away, pushing her hands and arms off of him. "Hey, it's me," she tried again, leaning farther over his bulky form to grab his face, "it's Sam. Please let me fix it, ok?" Bucky's cold, blue gaze landed on her with a ferocity that stopped her heart. He looked at her as if she were sticking a white-hot poker into his shoulder, letting loose a howl that froze her further. Sam knelt back on her heels, terrified.

"You," Tony's mechanized voice said behind her, "move away."

The velvet was soft in her twitching fingers. She had to. Sam looked up to hold Bucky's gaze long enough to see some recognition and then went back to furiously undoing the top buckles. The leather snapped against her delicate fingers, and she felt her nails bend backwards when she pulled at the clasps. She peeled away the thick fabric to reveal another shirt.

"Really?" Sam breathed, but she grabbed the neckline as hard as she could and pulled until she could she the dip between his collarbone and humerus. Syringe and needle in hand, she leaned her weight to steady him. "Youwe ill fill uh foo…" she started, holding the cap in her teeth, but the rest was too garbled to translate.

"That's all vibranium. Your needle won't go through—" Iron Man explained walking back towards his charge while the medics shuffled around him. Tony maneuvered the suit to see around Sam, getting a glimpse of pale flesh. "What the hell, Barnes?!"

Over the series of small injections around the edge of his left shoulder and pectoral muscle, Tony could see Bucky's veins glow lightly. It took a moment for him to realize there was no metal at all. Bucky's legs stopped scratching beneath him, and his shifting lessened. When Sam finally pulled the needle away, she reassured Bucky with a half-smile, smoothing his long hair out of his face. After a few more seconds, his pinpoint pupils relaxed.

Sam sat back on her heels, relaxed this time. "Ok," she huffed, "it's okay."

Several medics stood or knelt around them now, watching, arranging different implements from their cases, or shouting orders to others left by the doors.

Iron Man bent down to rip the black leather glove from Bucky's hand—a real, skin-covered hand—then the red and gold face looked up to see her face pointed to the sky, panting. "Sam?" Tony stuttered, taking in her short hair for the first time. "What happened!"

The suit twitched quick bursts of audio and motion. "What did you do? What is that? It looks—are you serious? Did you do that to him? We could have DIED!"

She tried to stand and back away, but as she rose, Iron Man latched his glove onto Sam's arm. Sam squirmed against the suit pathetically. The medics ignored them, heaving Bucky onto a hovering table and collectively leaving to care for his recovery.

"Sam," Tony yelled, clenching in his shock and outrage, but the connection cut in and out. Her name was cut short the second time, and the iron hand shut hard above her left elbow, the same spot that healed after her bike accident.

The snap of her bone was audible. Her eyes widened, and she fell onto boney knees that ached. Iron Man released her arm to let it fall, limp, to her side. Sam hissed in agony. The suit said nothing more. Mark XLII walked methodically back inside to its closet.

With a tickling precision, the hair on the back of Sam's arm stood on end, a small shiver crawled up her neck, and the pad in front of her shimmered. Sam jumped out of the way as fast as she could before the Bifrost cracked and burned its design into the concrete. And just like that, Thor stood, arms outstretched in smoldering, rainbow glory.

"Victory," the god of thunder bellowed, golden hair flying in triumph.

The Dora Milaje moved to chant congratulations, and the bystanders turned towards the Asgardian long enough for Sam to sneak away into the tree line.

Tony ripped the headset off and slammed it against the wall. The durable screen only cracked, making it the least broken thing held by Tony Stark. He'd heard it clear as day, a different kind of snap, one that he couldn't take back, one he'd never forget.

"Boss," Friday asked, concerned, "are you alright?"

Tony felt entirely disconnected from reality. As many times as he had controlled an XLII, he had mostly been on Earth, once from orbit, never hundreds of thousands of miles away. That was the first time he had even been with his own daughter inside the suit, and you broke her goddamn arm, asshole. He kept replaying it over and over. Bucky knew her well enough to let her handle him. His little girl jumped on top of a soldier to shove a syringe into him. What the hell would she know about treating him? Why the hell was his shoulder covered in skin? Was it made of flesh? What the hell was Shuri playing at? Did the Wakandan Princess, genius that she was, recruit Sam into this madness? Sam was at Harvard, doing what, Tony had no clue, but she was at Harvard Medical…so she would know—

She would know how much force he'd used on her arm in order to break it; Sam would blame him. In fact, Tony could not be sure it wasn't his fault that the suit gripped that hard. He wanted to blame the connection or the suit, but he knew full well that no lag in connection would let the suit move outside of his mimicked motion. At very least, the suit would never do a more violent movement than instructed to execute. The lag would cause a weakened response, not an increased.

"Friday," he huffed, "get us home as fast as possible. Whatever it takes."

Bucky walked quietly over the packed earth between trees in the forest behind his hut. The rough guess was that Sam had wandered out past the goats' grazing fields, but only Shuri had spoken to him about Samantha's involvement at all. The commanding scientist had seemed particularly upset by security footage, threatening to raid Sam's room for information if the girl wasn't found quickly. Only after all that formality did Shuri lean closer to Bucky and explain that Sam might be hurt. She did not believe the reclusive Sam would let any guard help, and while Shuri was intrigued by the soldier's new appendage, she sent Bucky off after a few quick checks.

"Just don't die, and don't let her either, until I can figure this out," the princess demanded. "Get going, Barnes."

So he jogged off to make up the head start his weak, injured prey had. Since this wasn't a mission in which he anticipated contacting firepower—or anyone other than Samantha Stark, an eighteen-year-old science nerd—Bucky held no weapon and stayed fairly relaxed, letting his mind wander during his treck out past his home.

What would the metal of his weapon feel like without the glove? Would the rapid-fire barrel be hot to the touch? Other than the force of Thor's lightning, would things be painful, different than his 'natural' side? Normal things like airflow, fabric, even his own fingers brushing his palm distracted him. He took on a slower pace, obsessed with the touch of bark on the trees and the smoothness of leaves. Bucky had spent so many decades feeling nothing in his left arm that the sensations made him feel heavy, lopsided with the attention demanded by new neurons. He could feel the rolling of muscle fibers over bone when turning his wrist, the gentle friction of prints when rubbing fingers together, and smooth, flat nails when making a fist. He had skin, layers of malleable material over tough fibers and hard bone. Perhaps he should refer to those as a close approximation to flesh, since he knew it wasn't strictly flesh. He did not understand the science, but this was the first 'improvement' given with his permission and not explicitly to make him stronger, deadlier, ormore controllable. Sam had worked tirelessly to make him feel more human. Not only had she asked him, but Sam waited for his decision.

Years of the Avengers constantly rushing to add more weapons and protections had left Bucky feeling as if he was being poured into Steve's old mold of Captain America. Of course, Steve got the benefit of being a pacifist at heart, so his improvements and upgrades were mainly costume enhancements. The Winter Soldier was solely born to kill; it was the one stigma of that past that never washed away. Bucky just killed for the good guys now, or as Tony told him to think about it, "evil suppression." The Avengers made a lot of assumptions about him in the long run. Whether he really wanted to or not, Bucky was made into too good of a soldier to retire, ever.

Bucky slowed as he heard crackling twigs ahead. Silent as a ghost, he advanced to see Samantha dragging her feet in an exhausted shuffle forward, scraping mounds of leaves up with her toes. He crept closer. She looked like a zombie, wandering alone without any of her own kind. Sam no longer held her arm in front of her. Unlike the security footage Shuri had shown him to track what direction Sam ran off in, her broken arm hung limp at her side. She walked so slowly that it would only take a few paces to reach her side, and he could see her clutching a small package to her chest with her right hand. Her focus did not find him. She seemed to have no focus at all.

Mid-step, Sam collapsed.

Bucky hurtled forward when he saw Sam's limp body hit the dirt. When he made it to her, he spread her across his lap, but her eyes were closed. He tried to revive her, smoothed his new hand over her face, her hair, calling her name softly. She didn't wake.

It took thirty-five excruciating seconds for Sam to regain consciousness. He checked her pulse and breathing. His pleas became commands. Seeing blood on the inside of her broken arm, he searched for where to place a bandage. He smeared crimson back and forth with his gloved hand, but there was no wound to find. He patted Sam's face to bring her around, leaving bloody marks on her cheek. Her eyes opened slowly, like chocolates unwrapped with care and anticipation.

"Hey," Bucky whispered. "Stay with me. Tell me what to do. I'll help." No bruising showed. Her skin looked a fresh, pink beige. She didn't look sick, but one bicep swelled to twice the size of the other. She still slumped like a wet rag while he held her.

"Please don't," Sam quietly rasped back, "it hurts like hell."

Bucky gave in to a small smile, though she remained looking off into the sky. "Now will still be better than later, I promise." He looked around. This was going to be one of the more F.U.B.A.R. medical procedures he would be part of, but there was no better option. She had walked too far into the woods to carry her back without losing too much time. It was also probable that Sam would need some sort of surgery after the break was realigned. Bucky would get Sam stable enough to get to the palace infirmary and Shuri.

"Just do it," Sam caved, weak but steady. Her breathing caught, labored, and Bucky knew she would pass out again soon. If he couldn't see what was going on, he needed her awake to tell him.

He laid Sam down as gently as he could, unfolding his legs from under her, and stretched her flat across what was as tidy a patch of dirt and leaves as any other. He climbed over to crouch at her left side. He tried to hold her gaze to see if she was ready, just as she had done for him earlier, but Sam remained fixated on the branches above them. Even in pain and danger, Starks were stubborn as ever.

Relieve some pressure first, he thought, then move the bone back into place. He reached back into his leg holster for a serrated knife. This was going to get messy.

He took a deep, steadying breath and exhaled. Once he started this, Bucky would have to ignore protests and screams until everything was settled, and he did not look forward to the amount of hate about to spew his way. Natasha was one of the only women he'd ever patched in the field; she was battle-trained and tested yet still let loose a venom he'd rarely experienced. That was her way of coping, Bucky supposed, but Sam was a desk jockey at best. This would get gruesome.

The point of the knife found the top of the swollen bulge in her arm, sliding in easily enough, and there was little more than a whimper from the patient—at first. The force with which blood spat out of the wound pushed her slippery arm right out of his grasp. It spewed everywhere. By the time Bucky got his grasp back around her elbow, the cut was sealed again.

"You just had to experiment on yourself, didn't you?" he groaned in frustration, wiping blood away where he could.

"It helped Sam, didn't it," came a quiet reply between pained breaths.

Aw, hell, she's talking in the third person now. We are really screwed. The next slice would have to be bigger and faster. He may even have to hold it open for a moment, if her skin would allow it. So that's what he did, as fast as he could.

The terrified, piercing shriek from Sam's lungs tore at his gut and eardrum alike, and instinctively, Bucky shoved his hand over her mouth, forgetting flesh was susceptible to teeth. Sam's jaw clamped down on the soft corner of palm just above his wrist. Suddenly, Bucky fought a scream, more in shock than unbearable pain. She let go after a long exhale. He had to cut her twice more before the excess pressure released, when the cartoonish sprays of blood stopped to become trickles. Each time her skin sewed itself back together quickly, evenly, with no sign of puncture. The only signal Bucky had as to the toll all this took on Sam was her jaw relaxing and her gaze slowly lolling off to the canopy of the woods.

"Just do it," she whispered. Her free arm scuttled and groped through the leaves beside her; probably trying not to take a swing at me, Bucky thought.

He settled his knee into the dip of her chest beside her shoulder. He grabbed Sam's arm above the elbow and ripped it to the side. The sharp crack sounded good, in a way, effective. Great, she can punch me with this one soon. Bucky felt Sam's chest press his knee to rise beneath him, so he moved back to her side. The bulge of swelling returned, and he made another cut with his knife.

This wound, however, did not heal right away, allowing blood to ooze out with a slowing pace. It took a moment for him to understand. When Bucky's eyes shot back to Sam's face, her eyes were blank, her whole face lax. His brain exploded into expletives. She'd done so well; he never thought…

He looked over the disastrous, bloody scene beneath him. Sam's right arm stretched out at an awkward angle with her palm down as if still grabbing for something. A few inches away, tumbled in the dirt and leaves, sat the little velvet pouch, its flap open enough to reveal the cap of another syringe.

Bucky scrambled across the dirt. Now his heart pounded for them both. It could be a pain killer, which would do Sam no good now, or it could be the same serum she'd given to him earlier, which might revive her and might not…

…or it could be more…

He needed it to be more. For the first time in years, he pleaded with himself, with some power beyond himself, anyone or anything, for this to be more.

Bucky tried to slam the needle into Sam's neck, hoping the pressure remaining might carry whatever was inside far enough into her system to make a difference, but the needle snapped off before it penetrated. The skin there wouldn't budge.

"What the hell," Bucky huffed. We do not have time for this, Sam, he screamed internally. No one had ever made such a fuss about staying alive. Of course, he wanted Sam to be alive, desperately so. Sam made him feel human. Sam had him dreaming again, dreaming about dancing and holidays and birthdays. He actually felt more because of her, and not just in his arm. The idea that Sam would never speak to him again felt crippling. We could be having our first argument right now. You just have to wake up… Why did he not ask her more? He hadn't told her how amazing it was to have his very own feely, fleshy arm back. She didn't understand how miraculous that was—she was—for doing that, for giving him that. All she had ever mentioned wanting in return was a little recognition. She wanted to be a part of the family she was born into. Sam would want to keep going, to keep working. Wouldn't she? Or was that his choice?

Even with the broken tip, Bucky pressed the syringe into Sam's cut arm, beginning chest compressions with his other hand. He moved it to the other end of the cut to empty the rest, hoping somewhere in there was a vein to take the medicine through. He didn't know how long to keep compressions up. Every second felt too long and not long enough.

Bucky grabbed Sam's chin, tilted her head back, closed her nose and blew into her mouth. Once. Twice. Three times. As he returned to chest compressions, her arm caught his eye: no cut. He checked at Sam's throat and found a weak pulse.

In that instant, he couldn't stop to think; Bucky scooped Sam into his arms and ran. He ran past his own hut as the sun set behind them, the goats bleating in encouragement and indifference.

In the dark, Sam's arm glowed a deep, vicious orange, and it was getting brighter. Only in those last strides towards Shuri's lab within the tower did Bucky begin to fear what he had done to Sam, if he'd made the right choice, if it would even be Sam who woke up…

End of Part II: Mind