A/N: Hello all! I come bearing gifts and a small announcement – I am now in the process of cross-posting Songbirds to AO3! I'm writing under the same username there so if you're also an AO3 user and see Songbirds on there, no worries, that's me! Also, if you're feeling benevolent and want to help a girl out, please leave Songbirds some love there to help give it a little boost.
So much love to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and followed! Extra special love to Stencil Your Heart, beta extraordinaire and queen spotter of lone mountains in the distance. This chapter is technically titled after the Fleetwood Mac version but I don't know if I've heard a cover of Landslide that I didn't like!
Disclaimer – I don't own Marvel. But you already knew that, didn't you?
Chapter 9 - Landslide
Bucky was beginning to think that Shuri was more demanding than any of his drill sergeants in the Army. He'd been subjected to all manner of abuse in the name of forming him into a competent Allied soldier but somehow, even without yelling at him the way his drill sergeants did, Shuri managed to be even more rigorous and demanding. Even worse, she did it with a smile on her face and the confidence that nobody, Bucky included, could refuse her anything. Even if she wasn't a princess, she was the smartest person in literally any room she walked into and wielded that intelligence like a weapon, bringing everyone under her ruthless, albeit sunny, rule.
When she instructed him to be at her lab by a certain time, the expectation was that he would show up five minutes early. If she asked him to sit still for the hundredth brain scan she'd taken, he didn't flinch. And if she requested that he drink a foul-smelling tea and sit cross legged on a plush rug in the center of her dimly lit laboratory, well, then that's how he was going to start his week.
"Seriously, what is in this?" He asked her, doing his dead-level best not to make a face. Bucky had to live with his atrocious cooking for two years on the run, so he knew a thing or two about how food and drink should and shouldn't smell and this tea was not it.
Shuri cracked one eye open to glare at him. She sat straight-backed, limbs perfectly folded and tea cradled in her hands like the steam wafting into her nose didn't smell like rancid garbage. "It's a combination of native herbs and tea leaves. And if you would stop fidgeting and complaining long enough to enjoy it, you'd discover it has a calming effect."
Somehow Bucky sincerely doubted that. Smell and taste aside, he metabolized substances too quickly to absorb any impact. If he couldn't get drunk off a fifth of whiskey, then he sure at shit wasn't going to be calmed by a tea. Still, his miniature drill sergeant wasn't going to take no for an answer or hear his well-reasoned argument. So, bottoms up it was. The tea's only saving grace was that it tasted marginally better than it smelled, though it was in dire need of a lemon wedge or a sugar cube or milk or being poured straight down the drain.
"Finished. What's next?"
Shuri sighed. "Rest your palm on your knee and close your eyes. The goal of meditation is to find stillness and clear your mind."
Bucky thought Shuri, the human equivalent of a well-aimed tornado, telling him to be still was somewhat ironic. He'd never seen her hold still for longer than a minute or two at a time. Even when she was immersed in her work, she would drum her fingers on the counter or tap her toes to the beat of a song he couldn't hear.
"Once your mind is clear, you can begin to put it back in order."
This was easier said than done, Bucky thought. Expecting him to try and bring order to over seven decades of trauma was like asking him to climb Mount Everest with little more than a light jacket. Clearing his mind required him to work around the massive knotted mess of memories and emotions, strings tacked into various corners of his mind that intersected and knotted up with each other until he couldn't tell one from the other.
"How am I supposed to do that?" The grimace on his face leached into his words.
"Keep your eyes closed and begin by taking in a deep breath. Fill your lungs and expand your diaphragm until you can't take in any more. Hold for a count of three and then exhale. Keep breathing and focus on your breath."
Bucky did as instructed, pulling the air in slowly through his nose until he felt close to bursting.
"As you continue to breathe, begin to focus on your body. Notice the places where you are grounded to the floor. Notice the different things you feel and sense."
A loose tendril of hair tickled his cheek, an escapee from the knot Shuri pulled it into when he arrived. The seam where metal met flesh on his back itched and he wished he could scratch it. Bitterness still touched his tongue from the tea, the dredges of which he could still smell. His muscles twitched; he longed to stretch his legs out. More than anything though, he felt a phantom, a ghostly touch on his left knee where a palm should have been. It had been like that for years; any time Bucky focused just a little too hard on his physical state, he became so acutely aware of his missing left arm that he swore he could feel it still. Even with his bionic arm, he felt the phantom pains and the exact place where the limb severed. Losing the arm was a blessing but even without it, Bucky wasn't sure he'd ever be comfortable in his own skin again.
"Try to let each discomfort or sensation go. With each breath began to relax your muscles, starting with your limbs and moving up to your face. One by one, ease each muscle until you are relaxed."
Bucky almost snorted in laughter. He hadn't relaxed in over seven decades. Every time he went into the ice he tensed up and even when he was a groggy mess after thawing out, he couldn't relax because coming out of the ice meant being wiped and programmed all over again. Still, for Shuri's benefit, he tried.
"It's alright if you can't do it completely," Shuri counseled and now Bucky wondered if she was watching him, which only made things worse. "Meditation is a learned skill. It will take practice."
She walked him through a guided exercise, tensing and relaxing muscle groups one by one until he squeezed his brows and let go, doing his best to ease the tension there. Although he wasn't anywhere close to what he'd call 'relaxed,' he did feel better by the end.
"Turn your attention to your mind. Notice your passing thoughts. What are you thinking about?"
"I feel lopsided," he muttered, thinking of the extra work he had to do to keep his spine straight with just one hand for support. Shuri's soft chuckle distracted him further.
"You do not need to tell me your thoughts. It only matters that you're aware of what's going on in your headspace."
Well, that was better. Bucky couldn't imagine sharing his inner thoughts with anyone let alone a sixteen year old girl who, when push came to shove, barely knew him. He appreciated how comfortable she was in his presence but that didn't translate to familiarity. If he was allowed to keep his thoughts to himself, he could more freely explore what was passing in the darkness behind his closed eyes.
What was he thinking about? There was the feeling of imbalance and uncertainty. Bucky wasn't sure that meditation was actually going to help him. He wasn't even certain the fully qualified therapist he was due to meet the next day could piece him back together. He wished he hadn't stayed up so late fighting sleep and he wished that he hadn't gotten up to get a glass of water only to discover Steve and Sadie sitting out on the balcony. The green-eyed monster of jealousy reared its ugly head when he stood in the shadows of the hallway so he would watch the pair laughing over a bottle of liquor. Once upon a time, Bucky was the linchpin that held the three of them together. He envied their ease now, able to relive old memories without the stain of forgetting. More than anything, he wished that he could just as easily join them; he knew he was welcome, both of them would have loved for him to join and yet he couldn't bring himself to make the short walk. Instead, he disappeared back into the shadows, back into isolation where he felt he belonged.
Steve. Sadie. Jealousy. Imbalance. Hunger. The thoughts didn't careen through his mind so much as bounce around until they lodged themselves in his brain like burrs on clothing.
"Focus on each inhale and each exhale. Let each thought slip from your mind as it enters."
Bucky's impulse was to clench down on his thoughts. A funny kind of fear took him, leaving him feeling as though if he were to let go of the moment, he would lose those thoughts forever the way he lost his memories. Deep down he knew he was being irrational; there was a huge difference between being forcibly brainwashed and clearing his mind to meditate. He just hated the idea of anyone, even Shuri, telling him to discard his thoughts and memories without a moment's pause.
His concentration shattered. Bucky could focus on his breathing all he wanted but everything else remained. Each inhale brought to the surface something new, one consideration or another that cropped up with no additional prodding from him. When he was supposed to release each thought on an exhale, he tucked them away whether to revisit later or just in case. Shuri continued to counsel him, speaking in a cadence that threatened to lull him into sleep. Stuck somewhere in the limbo between truly awake and drifting off, Bucky toyed with the notion of plucking the various strings leading from the tangle of his mind. What if he tried to follow just one string into the chaos, working slowly to free that one string before moving onto the next? There was something to the old baby steps adage; he certainly couldn't do it all at once but one tiny thread wouldn't break him, would it? Maybe instead of trying to empty his mind, he could focus on this instead.
And so he spent the rest of his meditation wading through the mental mess, exploring various starting points. What thread would be least painful to pull at? What would be the easiest to untangle from the rest? The longer he thought about it, the more he kept continually returning to some of the same thoughts over and over again. Certainly he could begin with his memories, putting them in order until the full timeline of his life emerged but that was a time-consuming, frustrating process. There was Sadie, but she came with too many other strings attached; Bucky could hardly look at her without tripping over the complicated web of emotions, many of which he'd yet to identify. Besides, he was still struggling to speak in coherent sentences when she was around and that was nothing to say of the physical response he had to her, which he could only classify as attraction in its most raw form. Just catching a glimpse of her smile caused his heart to beat a little harder and he still hadn't forgotten that morning he helped her with the lights and made her coffee. He'd spent almost their entire interaction avidly trying not to stare at her legs, doing his best to maintain his composure until he could disappear into the privacy of his room. If Sadie knew that he'd spent an embarrassing amount of time in his shower thinking about her, she'd probably never talk to him again. No, Bucky wasn't ready to tackle Sadie and all of her associated strings.
But Steve, on the other hand. Steve was perhaps the most surprisingly uncomplicated thread of all. In a brainwashed state Bucky tried to kill Steve not once, not twice, but three times and yet somehow all of that rolled off his back like water. Steve was willing to give up long standing friendships and his comfy life with the Avengers just to save him. For whatever reason, Bucky just didn't feel conflicted when it came to Steve. They were friends, always had been and Bucky suspected they always would be. Bucky was relieved to know that it would always be as uncomplicated and easy as that.
"When you're ready, open your eyes."
Bucky blinked into the ambient blue light of Shuri's lab. Where had the time gone? He couldn't even taste the remnants of that truly abhorrent tea anymore.
"So?" Shuri twisted her body on her mat to face him. "How was it?"
"It was... good?"
"You'll get better at it." Her confidence in him was far more inspiring than he likely deserved. But Bucky couldn't begrudge Shuri of anything. After all, she'd given him his first real shot at a second chance. "Now, down to the real work."
Shuri unfolded her long limbs and rose gracefully to her feet. Bucky struggled to follow her example and by the time he got to her side, she was already sweeping through the various files on her computer until she found what she was looking for.
"It's time to talk about your replacement prosthetic. Now, I've already rendered a basic 3d virtual model of what I have in mind but since you're the one rocking it, I want your input."
Bucky's stomach dropped out of his body.
He wouldn't begrudge Shuri of anything except for this.
"No," he said gently. He gingerly placed his palm over his shoulder plate. "I don't want a new arm."
Judging by the way her eyes widened and a few lines wrinkled her forehead, Shuri wasn't accustomed to hearing the word 'no.'
"But-" she started to say and then shut her mouth. The surprise on her face gave way to confusion, eyebrows lowering and snapping together and cheeks hollowing when she pursed her lips. "You can't just walk around without an arm. Not if I can replace it with an improved model and I think we both know I can."
Bucky bit the inside of his cheek to stop a sharp laugh from escaping his lungs. It wasn't that he didn't believe Shuri was capable; she'd successfully rooted around in his brain with no noticeable side effects. For the young genius, there was no such thing as 'too complicated.' The bigger the problem, the better the challenge. Despite her obvious brilliance, she had a tendency to show her age in unusual ways - her assumption that he couldn't manage life without two arms being one of them.
"Of course I can walk around without an arm. I've been getting on just fine without it since I got here."
"Well, yeah," she agreed. "But that's different."
If Bucky stayed this course, he already knew the direction their argument was headed. He'd dealt with enough stubborn people in his life to know that when Shuri latched onto a particular notion, she was almost as bad as a starving dog with a bone. It was his job to pry this particular bone out of her grasp before she took things too far.
"I'm sorry, but this isn't up for debate. I appreciate the work you've already put in but you might as well quit while you're ahead. I'm happy without a replacement."
Shuri crossed her arms over her chest. "But I-"
Bucky held up his hand to stop her before she started pushing him too hard. "Shuri, I mean it. I appreciate the offer but-"
"You're good. Yeah, yeah, yeah I get it."
He sincerely doubted she did but he was relieved all the same when the 3-D virtual model disappeared. Bucky nodded to her, offering a tiny smile of thanks but Shuri just rolled her eyes and moved onto the next thing. But, much to his surprise and amusement, he heard her distinctly mutter under her breath.
"If you were any more emotionally stunted you'd start shrinking."
X X X
As part of transitioning into the role of overseeing Wakanda's humanitarian outreach, King T'Challa set Nakia up with an entire office space and a staff ready to execute her vision down to the tiniest detail. There was a large conference room outfitted with the necessary technology for presentations and virtual meetings, an informal meeting area dotted with plush sofas, polished round wood tables, and a sleek kitchen that supplied a constant stream of coffee and tea. Nakia's own personal office had a balcony that overlooked the river, turned away from the hustle and bustle of the noise of the city. Sadie found her on the balcony, sifting through a whole mess of papers and muttering under her breath.
"Is now a bad time?" She asked, knocking gently on the door frame.
Nakia started but relaxed as soon as she recognized Sadie, her face splitting into a broad smile. "Join me, please. I'm still getting used to seeing someone so-" she gestured generally toward Sadie "-here in Wakanda."
Glancing down at her arms, bared by the short sleeved cut of her dress, Sadie fought a smirk. "Ghostly?"
Nakia rewarded her cheek with a laugh. "Exactly, I'm glad you get it. Come, sit."
From her spot at the table on the balcony, Nakia painted a rather striking picture. Her green jumpsuit bore a vibrant pattern, accentuated by a blue sash tied at her trim waist. Despite her nice gold jewelry and the pretty fabric and the wealth of professional-looking paperwork surrounding her, she sat with her legs folded onto her chair, barefoot with a slice of pear dangling from her fingertips. Everything about her drew Sadie in. Nakia represented to her something that Sadie had always longed for but could never quite achieve.
"I've been reviewing building and zoning plans for the Oakland site all morning long - the city council is holding a public meeting where I'm to present our proposal and everything has to be perfect," she explained, gesturing to what Sadie could now see were small mock-ups of blue prints and papers littered with Nakia's handwritten notes.
Progress. That was what Sadie saw in Nakia. She glanced back over her shoulder at the large, gorgeous office, a space that belonged to Nakia and Nakia alone. The significance of the office, the balcony, and the view wasn't lost on Sadie. This endeavor, bringing Wakanda into the light and reaching out to help the overlooked, also belonged entirely to Nakia; it was her ship to sail, her crew to captain and Sadie found herself almost jealous as she took it all in.
When she'd started IHAP, she worked from a desk in the room she rented in a women's boarding house in New York. Even though she'd done all of the talking, Howard still attended her meetings with potential donors, lending her credibility she never could have carried on her own. He did the same as she convinced members of foreign governments-all men, of course-to grant IHAP permission to operate and provide medical care, fighting tooth and nail for approval to use community spaces and to sleep in strange places like old Army barracks leftover from the war. Almost as soon as IHAP got approval, Sadie moved overseas, transforming into a nomad who wandered Europe, never staying in one place too long and never finding anywhere she could call home. Sadie did paperwork on top of unopened supply crates, struck up deals in city council hallways and never once had a space to call her own. During the war it was more of the same; she shared her desk at the hospital with the other nurses and bowed to the doctor's every order. Hell, even Peggy Carter's office was hardly bigger than a closet, and she was the most authoritative woman Sadie knew.
But Nakia… Nakia was the embodiment of everything Sadie hoped for. The world lay at her feet, ready to be reshaped into something better, something kinder and more resilient. Sadie and Evelyn liked to joke that if women ran the world, they wouldn't have been stuck in such a miserable war and in Sadie's eyes, Nakia was a shining example of why.
Almost as soon as Sadie sat, Nakia swept her papers to the side and got to her feet. "Before I forget, I have something for you." She padded barefoot into her office where she retrieved a thick manilla envelope. "An envoy just returned from Washington D.C., meeting with United States leaders to discuss a technology initiative and Tony Stark forwarded this to them to get it to you."
Sadie took the envelope and was surprised to see the logo bearing the name Smithsonian stamped in the top corner. "What is it?"
"Photographs that either belonged to you or are of you that were archived when the museum created the Captain America exhibit. He thought you might like to have them back."
The envelope suddenly felt like a cinderblock in her hand. She almost dropped it in sheer surprise and mild horror. Her old pictures? The ones from the war? From her time afterward? The pictures of all of the people she loved most, fixed immortal in black and white even if the harsh reality of life caught up to each of them in the end? Sadie wasn't sure she could stomach the thought of resting her eyes on personal photographs, facing the grim truth that nearly every single person captured in those pictures was now gone, in some cases long dead.
She found herself caught between wanting to cry and wanting to casually jump over the side of Nakia's balcony just to avoid this particular brand of gut-wrenching.
Nakia didn't notice the shift in Sadie's mood. She took the pictures at face value and moved on as though they were nothing more than child's drawings and not the record of Sadie's abruptly ended life. All of what she said next went in one of Sadie's ears and right out of the other, prattling on about the outreach program, her current challenges and what to do. Sadie was vaguely aware that she provided half-considered answers to Nakia's questions and trusted that she would be able to rectify any errors another time.
When Nakia wrapped up that discussion, Sadie thought she might be able to escape to her room to process this new bombshell but apparently, Nakia was just getting started.
"So," Nakia turned the full force of her smile on Sadie when she was seated and treated to a plate of succulent fruit. "Let's discuss you."
Sadie almost choked on her bite of mango.
"Oh don't act so surprised, Sadie," Nakia dismissed her wide-eyed surprise even as she shuffled her papers together in a neat stack, setting them aside. "Your job as my consultant on Wakanda's outreach won't be full-time and as much as she'd like to, not even Princess Shuri can keep you locked in her lab forever. The question then remains, now that you're out in the world, what will you do?"
"I-I don't know," Sadie blurted out after an embarrassing pause. "Honestly, I haven't given it a lick of thought."
Nakia scrunched her nose up at Sadie's figure of speech but bulldozed right past it. "Not at all? I have to admit I'm a little surprised. Someone as ambitious as you… I thought you'd be jumping at all the opportunities available to you."
Sadie took a sip of water to stop herself from snorting in sarcastic laughter. "I'm not sure when. For my first few weeks I was kept locked down by Secretary Ross with limited access to the outside world. After that I came here and most of my time has been eaten up by fulfilling my duties as a state guest and helping with Bucky."
Nakia fixed her with a critical eye. Although Sadie was not prone to intimidation, she did not like being under Nakia's microscope.
"You have options, you know. The world isn't what it used to be."
"What kind of options?" Sadie enquired, dropping her chin in her hand. She'd heard pitches like this before but never from anyone like Nakia. Sadie could still hear Doctor Ian Holmes quizzing her on various diseases and medical treatments, harping that she was a shoo-in for medical school. When she was discharged from the army, she'd endured multiple attempts to convince her to stay. Even Peggy made her strongest pitch to get Sadie to return to the S.S.R. but Sadie couldn't be swayed. There were options at her fingertips then but none of them appealed to her the way they should have. She could identify a problem with each of them from miles away and too often that problem had to do with the reminders of the life she should have had or the crushing loneliness that followed her around, a perpetual uninvited guest. Running away to Europe to solve someone else's problems was the only way she'd been able to stymy the ache.
"You could certainly reapply for your nursing license. You would need to complete some independent study to get caught up with modern practice and then take the licensing exam."
Sadie raised an eyebrow. "My degree is ancient."
Nakia waved a dismissive hand. "That's immaterial, a special exception can be made for that. Of course if you did want to go back to school, why not get a medical degree? Wakanda has a first-rate medical school and our doctors have access to the most advanced medical technology in the world. This year's incoming class was actually sixty-five percent female, with women in all fields of focus from genetics to surgery to family practice."
"Surgery was never an interest of mine," Sadie replied and then doubled back. "Sixty-five percent? Really?"
"It's a different world," Nakia explained with a proud little grin. "Medicine, law, engineering, politics, nothing is off limits to us anymore. You had a lot to do with that, you know."
"Oh, please," but even as Sadie tried to brush off the compliment, she felt the back of her neck heat up. "I played such a small role in the war and after."
"Sure, if you call single-handedly creating an international aid organization that not only helped rebuild post-war Europe but endured over the decades to have teams literally all over the world providing desperately needed medical care, housing, food, and education small then yeah, I suppose you didn't have much of a hand in kickstarting the feminist movement."
Sadie wanted to stammer out some sort of a rebuttal. Nakia wasn't the first to insinuate Sadie's larger role in gender politics. Over the past weeks Sadie had voraciously read anything and everything that came into her hands including history books that mentioned her in the same breath with women like Peggy, listing her as a major influence for women's equality. But that was never on Sadie's mind when she was nursing patients or arguing with bullheaded city councilmen for operating permits. She'd never dreamed that IHAP would turn into what it was now but there was no denying that her reasons for starting it had less to do with everything Nakia just mentioned and more with her own personal demons. But Sadie learned long ago that nobody ever really wanted to hear the real reasons for anything. All charity had a selfish component inherent. Doing good things for others made people feel good or, in Sadie's case, gave her an escape. Just one look at Nakia's shining face told Sadie that she didn't need to hear the real reasons.
"I suppose you could rejoin IHAP but that would be difficult considering you'll be here for the foreseeable future."
"I wouldn't even know what to do with myself there," Sadie admitted, feeling small once more. "IHAP it seems has grown far beyond me and anyway, I don't think it's a good idea to return to field work until my powers are better understood."
Nakia sighed, leaning back in her chair. "I guess that's your first priority. Depending on what Shuri finds, it could change everything for you."
"It already has," she murmured. Turning away from her new friend, Sadie stared out over the sparkling river. There wasn't much she wouldn't give to be rid of these special enhancements. Her mind trailed to a nun she'd met during the war who summed up Sadie's innate ability for medicine and patient treatment as a gift from God. According to that nun, she had healing hands. Somehow Sadie didn't think that her newfound abilities were what God or anyone else had in mind when it came to possessing a healing touch.
"It will get better," Nakia assured her, as though she could read the despondency clouding Sadie's mind. "You've been awake for less than two months. Eventually you'll adjust. I only wanted to discuss your options because the fact is that you are here and there's no changing it. Finding a direction might help make the transition just a little easier."
Sadie knew that Nakia was trying to be reassuring but her words had the exact opposite effect. All she'd done was remind Sadie that she was in an unfamiliar place, in an unfamiliar time, without the comfort of knowing that across the Atlantic the people she loved most were safe and living their lives. Not only was Sadie facing the daunting prospect of picking up the pieces of her life yet again, she was going to have to do it entirely on her own.
But just like people didn't want to know the reasons for why she did the thing she did, nobody ever really wanted to hear that they were hurting more than helping. And so Sadie swallowed her feelings like a bitter pill, smiling blithely as it went down.
"I'll think about it," she promised.
X X X
By the time Shuri released Bucky from her clutches, he was fighting a pounding headache and wanted nothing more than to fall face-first into his bed. Between meditating, fighting with her over the replacement prosthetic and enduring more brain scans and various exercises to test his neural response rate, Bucky felt like he could sleep for a week solid. He didn't know why, but he'd expected that once Shuri deprogrammed him, her tinkering in his head would stop. How wrong he'd been. She explained that trigger words were one thing but understanding the full extent of what HYDRA did to him required more time. According to her, he had a once-in-a-generation mind that required study. Bucky wished she meant a once-in-a-lifetime genius but what she really meant was he was a particularly unique brand of neurologically fucked up.
Once again he'd allowed her to glue a series of electrodes to his scalp. Even though he swore he'd never let it happen again, Bucky let her do it more out of guilt than anything. Shuri was sorely disappointed that he didn't want a new arm and he thought giving her free reign of everything else would lessen the blow. She appeared to shake off his rejection well enough, though he wondered if she was taking just a little too much enjoyment out of turning his hair into a mess than she let on. One thing was for certain, trying to get the glue out of his hair with acetone and washing the long strands with one hand was exceedingly difficult, a fact that Bucky realized midway through rinsing the acetone out. Ever since he'd been wondering if she did it on purpose, a tiny demonstration of how much easier his life would be with two hands.
Bucky grumbled about it to himself on the trek back to the palace. A lonely set of stairs took him up the three floors to the small area of the complex that he now called home. He ground to a halt upon seeing Sadie sitting at the kitchen counter in the common area.
Seeing her shouldn't have come as such a shock but sometimes it was still so hard to believe that she was alive that Bucky forgot himself. Lately they'd really only seen each other in passing, both of them tied up with their respective commitments but even then Sadie always greeted him with a warm smile like she was actually happy to see him.
At the moment, however, he couldn't find a trace of that smile anywhere on her pretty face. She rested her head in one hand, fingers buried in the thick brunette curls that tumbled down to barely brush the countertop. Bucky decided that he liked this more modern hairstyle on her, far different from the no-nonsense chignons she'd worn while serving in the Army. A crystal lowball glass sat next to her elbow, holding two fingers of amber liquid that he guessed came from the matching crystal decanter sitting within her reach. Bucky recalled Sadie drinking socially but he didn't think she'd been much of a drinker otherwise; he certainly couldn't think of a time he'd seen her drinking alone. She flipped the page of her book but didn't appear to be reading at all and then blew out a frustrated sigh and snapped the book shut. Next to the book sat a thick envelope that she averted her attention to.
Bucky didn't know why he did it. He could have just as easily slipped into his room unnoticed but the urge to help her was just too strong.
"Everything okay?"
Sadie glanced up from the book's cover, full lips parted in soft surprise. "Bucky, I didn't hear you come in. I'm alright, why wouldn't I be?"
Bucky wondered if the impulse to roll his eyes was because Sadie was a terrible liar or because he'd heard this particular attempt at avoiding the issue before. Cautiously, he approached the counter and raised an eyebrow, looking directly at her drink. "Because you're drinking at," he glanced at the clock, "three in the afternoon on a Tuesday. Which, I'm pretty sure isn't normal for you."
"I think what I'm drinking is immaterial since I apparently can't get drunk. Not that I was ever much for that anyway."
"You too?"
Sadie nodded. "My first night in New York, Steve and I sat on the rooftop for a long time and went through almost an entire bottle of whiskey without realizing it and nothing-not even a buzz."
This was something Bucky understood. "That's probably a side-effect of what happened to you," he said, doing his best to artfully side-step the details of what actually had happened to her. He couldn't come outright and say that was likely the serum's doing. "You get used to it."
Though on Bucky's side of things, it certainly wasn't for lack of trying. He'd made several attempts to down enough liquor to drown out his demons to no avail. All he'd done was drink enough to cause his system to reject the alcohol entirely which led to a few nights propped against the bathroom wall across from the toilet and a spectacular headache that took almost an entire day to subside. After that, Bucky gave up on drinking entirely; he couldn't afford alcohol worth savoring and if he couldn't do that then he didn't see much of a point to it. But if he had to wager a guess, the whiskey here was probably just as good as everything else in Wakanda, which was to say exceptional.
Sadie caught him eyeing her glass. "It's pretty smooth. Can I tempt you?"
Bucky almost snorted in laughter. If Sadie had any idea how confusing and tempting she was to him, she wouldn't have posed her question that way. He started to decline but he realized that Sadie's invitation was for more than just a glass of whiskey. Sadie didn't care about the whiskey. She cared about interacting with him and Bucky understood then that every time Sadie did smile at him when she saw him, it was because she truly was happy to see him. After all, she'd come to Wakanda almost entirely for the purpose of reuniting with him. If he rejected her now, he might as well tell her to pack her bags and go. And regardless of his tangled, messy feelings for her, the last thing Bucky wanted was for Sadie to leave.
His lips curved in a tiny, welcoming smile. "Sure, that'd be great."
A moment later she slid a glass to him, careful not to let her fingers get too close to his. Another awkward silence settled over them and Sadie seemed more interested in staring at her drink than focusing on him. Bucky swallowed hard and decided that if he was brave enough to share a drink with her then he was also brave enough to try actually talking to her.
"So, what's got you so down?"
Her stormy eyes flickered to him and then back to the envelope. "It's nothing," she sighed and pursed her lips; he saw straight through her flimsy answer. "A conversation I had with Nakia this afternoon. She asked me all these questions about what I want to do with myself now that I'm here and gave me that."
Bucky trained his attention on the manilla envelope. "What's in it?"
"Pictures. Sometime after I disappeared, the Smithsonian asked my family and IHAP and a few other people for pictures to put together for my tiny corner of an exhibit on the Howling Commandos. They kept all of the extras to archive. Tony asked the museum to release them so I could have them back."
Bucky could imagine the kind of one-two punch that might pack. When he started recovering his memories, he found looking at pictures to be the most helpful and hurtful method of retrieval. He could recognize a familiar face and with enough study, eventually the true details would return. This was incredibly helpful until he found himself staring at the same pictures over and over again, desperate to put his timeline in order and to understand the visceral reactions he felt when he looked upon certain faces.
Though in his humble estimation none of Sadie's photographs, as lovely as they were, did justice to the real thing.
"And you haven't opened it," he surmised.
She nodded. "I think seeing those pictures again is going to make it real. More real than it already is." Bucky wasn't sure what she meant but she saved him the trouble of asking. "It's just that most of the people in those pictures are gone now. And Nakia asking me whether I want to return to nursing or go back to school or join her full time and dangling all these other options in front of me reminds me that I'm back at square one." Sadie drained her drink and reached for the decanter. "She was trying to be helpful but all I could think about was the fact that I have to start over again."
Bucky's innards squirmed. Though she certainly hadn't meant to point fingers and she was vague enough, he got the message loud and clear. She was never supposed to land in Wakanda in a brand new century. But here she was, sitting at the counter sporting a modern hairstyle and wearing modern clothing and it was all his fault. If not for Bucky, if not for their past love, if not for the way he needed her so badly, she would have gotten to spend her life with everyone else who mattered to her. By now she should have been nearing one hundred or already passed after having lived a long, full life.
She was not supposed to be here and both of them knew it.
"I'm sorry." It was the only thing he could think of to say and he tried to put as much meaning into it as he could.
"It's not your fault," she countered, one corner of her mouth rising in a sad smile. "It's not like you wanted to end up this way either."
Sadie had him there.
Though if she knew the truth, would she be so forgiving? Bucky sincerely doubted that. Despite knowing that concealing the details from her was utterly wrong, the impulse to clamp tighter down on the truth became stronger than ever. His aloof behavior aside, he didn't really want to drive her away and moreover, he wanted to protect her from certain facts for as long as he could. The logic he employed was twisted and messy but he hadn't been able to protect her from the worst back then, so the very least he could do was shield her now. Bucky certainly wished someone had protected him.
"For what it's worth, Nakia's right. You're not exactly topping every most-wanted list in the world. There are a lot of options out there for someone as smart as you are."
The compliment slipped out before he even realized what he'd said. The back of his neck flushed in mild embarrassment. Bucky wasn't even sure when he'd last complimented anyone. Probably Sadie herself back in 1945. She rewarded him with a warm, soft smile that caused his heart to stutter over a beat. To cover his mortifiction, Bucky lunged back to the subject at hand.
"You're really not gonna open it?"
Bucky didn't expect her to slide the envelope across the counter to him. "Be my guest."
The challenge stood between them and although Bucky knew the right thing to do was to politely decline and allow Sadie to process the pictures on her own time, his curiosity proved to be too much. He pushed the tabs of the brass fastener up, eased the flap open and grasped the stack of pictures inside, shaking the envelope free. The first picture took his breath away. He'd never seen this picture of Sadie before and he'd scoured libraries and the internet for as many images of her as he could find.
She stood next to a stack of crates, each bearing a large 'IHAP' stamp, offering a close-mouthed smile for the camera. Bucky didn't recognize her shirt, tucked neatly into her crisp pencil skirt but the logo also bore her organization's name. Her hair was shorter than it had been during the war, pulled half away from her face and barely brushing the tops of her shoulders. She looked different, older and wiser, perhaps even more jaded despite her heart-stopping smile.
"That was taken the day before our first European operation began in Salzburg." Bucky started. He hadn't heard her come to his side. "I think that was the longest I stood still all day. Howard insisted I take a picture for posterity's sake."
Bucky wished that just hearing Howard Stark's name wouldn't tip his stomach over the edge, falling out of his body and somewhere below the earth's surface. He flipped to the next picture just to shake the association. Again, Bucky didn't recognize the civilian living room but he recognized the woman sitting on the sofa next to Sadie, both women beaming at the infant cradled in Sadie's arms.
"Evelyn?" Bucky thought that was the right name.
"Mhmm." Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky caught the tremble of her lips. "Do you remember Doctor Ian Holmes?" Bucky nodded, but only because he vaguely placed the name even if the details were a blank. "They got married shortly after VE day and had a son about three months after I got home, Teddy. This was taken the morning of his christening; I was his Godmother."
Bucky's heart clenched.
"And that was taken in New York," she murmured when he flipped to the next picture.
"You went to New York?" Bucky asked, his voice holding a note of surprise. He didn't know why he was jarred by the sight of her standing on the steps of the Met but he was. They'd always talked about what they would do when they got home, how she would show him Little Rock and introduce him to southern hospitality. Bucky liked to list off all of the places he wanted to take her in the city. At one point they'd even planned on moving to Brooklyn together but that was never meant to be.
"Hmm," Sadie sipped her whiskey. "I lived there for a while actually; rented a room at a women's boarding house while I worked on getting IHAP off the ground."
Bucky set the pictures down because he was just too shocked to carry on. The realization then came crashing down on Bucky's head like a collapsing skyscraper. Sadie saw the end of the war. She experienced the collective relief when Hitler did the world a favor and put a bullet in his brain and when the Japanese finally surrendered. And despite none of her future plans working out how she intended, she'd gotten her honorable discharge, boarded a troop ship and sailed back to the American soil she'd left behind some two and a half years earlier. All of these pictures served as a stark reminder that she'd gone home and gone on to live an entire life without him.
When Sadie said she had to start over again, she meant it because she'd done it once before and the results of her handiwork were breathtaking. She'd become a godmother. She was brave enough to uproot her entire life and move to a strange city. She poured herself into an endeavor that had literally changed and saved lives. And then HYDRA came along and ripped it all away. All of her labor, all of her passion, all of the people she loved most in the world, himself included.
"How?" He asked, unable to stop the question from springing up from his tight lungs to the tip of his thick tongue. "How did you do it?"
Sadie blinked at him, large eyes swimming in confusion. A tiny line appeared between her eyebrows that Bucky itched to smooth away with his thumb. "What do you mean?"
"All of it-going home, moving on from everything you did and saw, doing this," he held up the picture of her standing next to the IHAP crates.
And then, she did something that Bucky swore he'd seen her do before. She shrugged a single shoulder and a sad smile tugged at her full mouth. "I didn't really have a choice," she explained. "Ater you-" she paused and drew in a deep breath. "I wasn't the same after you died but the world kept on spinning whether I wanted it to or not. When I got home, things got worse. I couldn't assimilate because of the things I did and saw. Well, I guess more the things I didn't do, the patients I never got to, the civilians I never helped. I knew I wasn't going to find domestic bliss at home and working at the hospital wasn't fulfilling enough so I just decided to take a leap-a big leap of faith. And I got lucky, it worked out for me right up until it didn't."
Until it didn't.
Bucky's breath stilled in his lungs. Things not working out wasn't really what he'd call this situation. Sadie pushed a few thick curls behind her shoulder and took the picture of her holding her godson, smiling over the rim of her whiskey. The fact that she'd landed in a time and place she had no business being wasn't just things not working out.
It was a goddamned tragedy.
"I'm sorry," he said it again because now he knew he could say it a thousand times and it still wouldn't be enough. Bucky could spend the rest of his miserable life apologizing to her for dragging her forward seven decades and it wouldn't even begin to scratch the surface of the penance he owed her. Because it wasn't just the fact that HYDRA took her because of him. No. It was because he'd left her. In her eyes he'd gone and gotten himself killed, destroying the entire foundation for her future, dashed into shreds along the same mountainside that took his left arm.
This time she didn't so easily brush him off.
"It's truly okay." The genuineness in her voice made him want to cry. "I had time to grieve. Assimilating back into the world would have been hard regardless of whether or not you'd come home with me. I guess saying I was different after you died isn't fair. I'd changed long before that and I was never going to fit in the way people expected."
"Still," he countered. "I wouldn't have ever-I want you to know that I-" he swallowed hard, unsure of how to even string the words together.
"Wouldn't have leapt out of a speeding train down the side of a mountain into a snowy ravine just to get out of marrying me?" She questioned in a far too-innocent voice.
The snort of laughter popped out of his mouth before he could swallow it. He'd forgotten about the dark edge of Sadie's humor. But Bucky found that he liked it just as much now as he had back then. Somehow hearing her make a joke about one of the worst events of his life and hers made it just a fraction more bearable. He drained his scotch but was still smiling when he set his glass down.
"Yeah, that. I wouldn't have done that to you."
When she laid a gentle, innocent hand on his shoulder, Bucky swore he felt the warmth of her touch flood into every nook and cranny of his body. "I know, Bucky. But it's nice to hear it all the same."
X X X
Perhaps it was a function of being a soldier for the better part of his adult years or maybe even because he'd already grown up with next to nothing, but Steve was a light packer. On missions for the Avengers he hardly ever filled his locker on the quinjet, content to stuff a change of clothes, a toothbrush and a stick of deodorant into a duffle bag. For longer trips he might toss in a small bottle of two in one shampoo and soap. Tony once found the little bottle and nearly laughed himself hoarse. The next morning Steve woke up to discover his bathroom at the compound stocked with an entire salon's worth of body and hair care products worth literally hundreds of dollars. Although the whole thing had been one big joke to Tony, Steve had still been touched by the silent gesture and generosity. Tony was always doing little things like that, taking the shit out of someone for his own amusement while simultaneously bestowing them with some sort of extravagant favor.
The mere thought of Tony's unsung heroics aggravated the ever-present guilt in the pit of Steve's stomach. He shoved it away as forcefully as he shoved his three folded shirts into his duffle bag. Arranging his affairs to leave Wakanda took a grand total of ten minutes. One phone call from Natasha, tempting him with fresh intelligence on a cache of Chitauri weapons and beseeching him to help so Sam didn't feel the need to fill his absence was enough provocation. And so he'd gone to T'Challa and privately the men agreed that it was time Steve left for a litany of reasons. The most important of which was that Steve was tasked with a very important job: throwing the scent off T'Challa's trail when it came to his role in helping Steve escape and granting Bucky asylum. A small case resided in Steve's duffle bag, containing an ingenious little invention of Shuri's. The tiny nanotech device was already programmed; all Steve had to do was apply it to the skin behind his ear, tap it and an entire nanotech shield would spread over his head and face, altering his appearance to look like Bucky. From there all Steve had to do was be sighted in public a couple of times as himself and as Bucky. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Secretary Ross would take any lead he could get and send a battery of his best agents to track the wanted men down, taking even the possibility of any heat off T'Challa.
Bucky hated the plan because he thought it was unfair of Steve to take such an unnecessary risk on his behalf. But not even he could argue against the benefits of a Winter Soldier sighting somewhere in Eastern Europe. Steve hadn't had to fight him all that hard on the matter, which in and of itself was worrying.
In fact, the only hesitation Steve had about getting back to work was Bucky. He'd hoped that by reuniting Bucky with Sadie, some of the tension his friend carried would melt away. Steve truly thought that Sadie's mere presence would have the same effect that it had had on him. Whether she knew it or not, Sadie had been a godsend to Steve. It wasn't fair that she'd been dragged to the future but in some ways Steve was immensely glad that she had. For the first time in years he finally had someone he could relate to, a friend who shared his life experience and understood why he'd done the things he did a few weeks earlier. Steve believed that Sadie could be that person for Bucky, that she could be more than that for him, but so far Bucky appeared wholly uninterested in that.
Even now the man sat in the chair in the corner of Steve's room doing his best impersonation of a brooding teenager being told he couldn't stay out past curfew. Although Steve was aware that Bucy was dealing with an entire lifetime's worth of baggage and emotional trauma, he thought his sulking was a little much. He was just going to Estonia, not a different planet.
"You know how to get in touch with me if you need anything?" Steve asked for probably the third time since he announced the night before that he was leaving.
"Yeah."
Bucky even sounded like a grumpy teenager, but maybe he'd sounded like that ever since Steve found him in Bucharest.
"Shuri said she's got all sorts of stuff planned to keep you busy."
"Christ, Steve, she's a scientist not my camp counselor," Bucky complained and Steve fought the urge to smile.
There was something there now, a flavor to Bucky's attitude he hadn't seen or heard in a long time. Admonishing Steve this way reminded him of the old Bucky, the same Bucky who used to roll his eyes right before breaking up an alley fight or warn Steve not to go meddling in his personal life. He liked hearing the indignance, pushing back against the insinuation that Bucky needed babysitting. He needed nothing of the sort but there was no denying he needed occupation. Bad things happened to idle minds, especially minds like Bucky's where his dark memories were a breeding ground for negative thoughts to grow and fester like mold hidden behind drywall. If Shuri could keep him busy, keep him focused on moving forward and healing then perhaps he would begin showing more and more of these aspects of his former self.
Steve could only hope.
A soft knock on the doorframe distracted both men. Sadie appeared, looking very pretty in royal blue. She graced both men with a warm smile. "I just saw one of the King's attendants. He said the jet's ready and waiting."
"Sure. Will you be there?"
Sadie shook her head. "I've got to meet Nakia to give her notes on her presentation to the Oakland city council, otherwise I would. So I'll say my goodbye now and wish you luck." She crossed the short distance and gave him a sisterly hug that he returned in full force. "Take care of yourself and be safe, alright?"
"I will," he promised.
She was gone almost as swiftly as she appeared and if Bucky was affected in any way by her appearance, he didn't let it show. "Have you talked to her much?"
"We talk," Bucky hedged his words.
We talk. If Steve could roll his eyes any harder he'd give himself a headache. "You know she came here because of you."
"Yeah, I know."
So they were back to this, to his near mono-syllabic responses and cagey behavior. What was so difficult about this, Steve didn't know. Nobody, not even Sadie herself was asking anything of Bucky except to simply be honest and do his best to be open. To the best of his knowledge, she wasn't pushing him for anything. In fact it was quite the opposite; she was letting him come to her, like a child dangling a piece of meat out to entice a particularly nervous dog. Actually, as Steve tilted his head and gave Bucky a critical look, with the long hair and unkempt stubble he sort of did look like a particularly disheveled stray.
"Do you want her here?"
Up until now, Steve had just assumed the answer was yes. Why wouldn't Bucky want another connection to his past? Particularly one so strong as Sadie? She could answer certain questions that not even Steve himself could and their shared history, though brief in the grand scheme of things, was a powerful one. If anyone could help Steve bring Bucky back from the brink then surely it was Sadie. Why wouldn't Bucky want help from the one person who knew him just as well as - if not better than in some ways - Steve?
But then, now that he thought about it, perhaps that was the answer to the question. Sadie wasn't a stranger, not really. There was a time when Bucky was ready to commit himself to her completely. Steve never thought Bucky would settle down and marry but all it took was the right girl. Bucky and Sadie were lightning in a bottle, an impossible thing that thrived even when death surrounded them. Trying to parse their relationship out and make sense of it now that that love was gone was a big ask, maybe too much to ask of Bucky now. Possibly ever.
"I do."
"Say it with a little more feeling and I might believe you," Steve deadpanned.
Bucky scrubbed his hand over his face, groaning into his palm. "It's just complicated. I don't know what I'm supposed to do around her. And every time she looks at me it's like she knows me better than I know myself."
"Well, I do that," Steve noted and Bucky shrugged.
"Yeah well, I didn't used to sleep with you."
"Touche," Steve remarked, making a face. He realized then that he'd dismissed that part of their relationship entirely. Although both Bucky and Sadie weren't the types to parade every detail of their relationship for the world to see, it was impossible to overlook certain indiscretions. No matter how discreet they were, it was one of the most poorly kept secrets in the SSR that Sadie spent most of her nights in Bucky's quarters. Steve wasn't one to be crass, but the phrase 'like rabbits' was one he'd apply to Bucky and Sadie's off-duty activities when push came to shove. And he hadn't even considered how that type of intimacy, and the way it could inexorably bind two people together, would complicate the situation tenfold.
"Look, Steve. This isn't something I'm going to figure out overnight. It's gonna take time."
Time, Steve supposed, was the one thing Bucky did have now that he was safely ensconced in Wakanda.
"Are you sure? I can stay. Nat and Sam might drive each other nuts but they can manage without me."
"No, go. I'll be okay."
Bucky's promise sounded sincere but these days Steve could never tell.
"I'm serious. If you need me here, this is more important."
"It's fine. Sadie and I are both adults. I think we can handle a few more awkward conversations."
Although Steve still wasn't entirely convinced, he finished packing and together he and Bucky set off for the landing pad where the quinjet awaited. Fortunately for Steve, the jet was in near-pristine condition. He had no idea when and if he would be able to find maintenance for it for a long time to come. With nothing but a duffle bag on his shoulder and a mission ahead of him, Steve felt lighter than he had in weeks. Reaching out, he clapped Bucky's shoulder.
"Promise me you'll take care of yourself."
Bucky smirked. "You're the idiot going off to track down a bunch of alien guns. I ought to be saying that to you."
"I've got Nat and Sam, I'll be fine."
"Uh-huh. I've heard that before," Bucky joked and his grin grew into a genuine smile when Steve gave him a firm shake. "I'll see you around."
Steve's hesitance now had very little to do with Bucky and Sadie and all of their baggage. Bucky was right; at the end of the day they didn't need a camp counselor or a mediator or even a well-meaning friend trying to manage their business. No, Steve wanted to stay because he wanted more of this, more banter, more old memories coming to light, more downtime, just more time in general.
But duty called and that, above all other things, would always be Steve's top priority. Bucky slapped his shoulder once in an affirmation that their friendship, even whilst under repair, wasn't going anywhere and neither was he. Confident that at the very least his friends were safe in Wakanda, Steve bade Bucky goodbye and boarded the quinjet alone. He tossed his duffle onto the co-pilot's seat and set his course for the coordinates Natasha sent him. It was going to be a long, lonely flight.
Almost as soon as he cleared Wakandan airspace, Steve set the jet on autopilot, flying at just the right altitude to avoid most radars. He grabbed his duffle and went to stuff it in his locker. Upon opening the door, his chest seized. There hung his uniform, cleaned and repaired by one industrious Wakandan soul or another. Just seeing it hurt, a miserable reminder of how far he'd fallen in the last two and a half months. The Avengers patch on the shoulder taunted him, taking up the place where his Howling Commandos patch once resided. He would give anything for the wings and not that A.
Feeling ashamed and angry, Steve grasped the edge of the patch firmly and pulled hard. The patch came away, the threads holding it in place snapping. In the moment of Steve's fervor his arm jerked back and the patch went sailing overhead, landing on the floor and sliding to a halt beneath the seat.
Steve didn't even bother trying to retrieve it.
A/N: Next chapter digs a little deeper into Bucky's reticence to replace his arm and some other set up!
Liked it? Loved it? Think that Shuri might actually be a camp counselor for emotionally damaged centenarians? I would love to know any and all of your thoughts. Much love – Kappa.