Chapter 3
Bucky Woke up with a pounding headache, scratch that, this was one of the worst migraines he could remember ever having.
Inwardly he froze. He didn't want to open his eyes. It just seemed like the nightmares kept going and going. The last thing he remembers is screaming himself raw to stop the madness. He remembers fighting Sam and then those words. Words he had never herd before spoken so sweetly to him and then nothing and now darkness and a pounding migraine.
He fears trying to move. He doesn't want to realize he still isn't in control. So, he just doesn't move. He can't even tell if he is breathing on his own or if it's the beast keeping his body alive to keep fighting.
Hours must have past before he decided to try to even move the slightest muscle. He can't feel his arm he tries to flex his metal arm but nothing. He wonders if its because the monster is still in control, so he tries his own arm.
"Hey! Boys! Check it" the voice is yet again familiar, but he hasn't herd it in a long time and can't exactly place it right away. If only she would keep talking, he may be able to place a face to the voice. He still doesn't trust his own eyes to not betray him.
He wiggles his fingers again trying not to move a whole lot, but his body cramps up and finally he understands. Its not just a migraine. His entire body hurts. He lets out a whimper of pain and finally knows its not the beast in control anymore. His eyes fly open in a panic as he knows he is restrained again scared out of his damn mind he is about to be reset and sent on another mission against his will.
Instantly he tries to get up but his chest in strapped in and the lights in the room around him are glaring and so bright. He can't see anything as his eyes adjust.
"HEY! Whoa Buck! Calm down!" the voice is fearful, but he can also detect panic in the mans voice
"Shuri is he okay?"
Now he knew the voice and tried to start calming himself down, but he only started to hyperventilate. He couldn't get himself under control. He felt like he was choking. Like ice was running up his veins again. It felt like being put on ice.
He tried to use his voice but only a strangled cry came out.
"For Bast's sake, he is having a panic attack"
His eyes are frantic, and he struggles against the restraints. Trying to free himself. Internally he knows the people in front of him, but he can't help himself. He just tried to kill two of them and his body isn't doing what he wants it to.
He feels something hit his chest rather painfully and then as quickly as he is awake, he is drifting back into darkness. The voices around him start to sound farther and farther away.
He dreams of nothing. Its all blank in his mind for what seems like an eternity. Maybe this is what death is. Maybe he is done, someone has finally put him out of his misery, and he could cry. No more pain, no more messing up and hurting his friends.
However, he starts to feel his head again and he knows the migraine is still there and he isn't dead. Unless hell does truly exist, and he is damned to hurting his whole afterlife.
He starts to not feel like he is floating anymore in the vast nothingness and he feels the solid plush mass beneath himself. He is aware he is laying down. Well, he feels more relaxed. He tries to flex both of his hands again yet only one moves. The true flesh and bone.
He peeks his eyes open slowly. Blinking slowly trying to adjust better this time round. He does not panic. He knows his mind is his own now. He leans his head sideways, he is in some kind of hospital room? To his right is Sam hunched over in a chair asleep, his neck at what looks to be a very uncomfortable angle. He then rotates his head to the left looking down for his arm he still can not feel.
And his suspicions are confirmed at last. His new metal arm is gone. If he recalled correctly, he had heard Shuri before having passed out again. She designed it; she must have taken it away from him to protect themselves.
Glancing up his eyes connect with a set of eyes boring back into his own. A finger is brought to his lips letting him know to be quiet. The universal sign to not make a sound. Zemo's face is hard to read but glancing down at his lap a copy of The Two Towers lays in his other hand propped open.
"can you read…" his voice is as hoars as he knew it would be. He doesn't hear any movement behind himself and knows he hasn't woken Sam. Zemo puts the book down on the table next to him and grabs a glass of water with a straw in it, lifting it towards his lips in an offer for a drink.
Bucky lets the straw fall into his mouth and sips the cool water down slowly at first, but it then feels like he could drink a swimming pool full. He feels so dry like he hasn't drunk anything in weeks.
He finished the glass of water quickly and Zemo places the glass back on the bedside table. His eyes pleaded for more but Zemo didn't move out of the chair anymore then to reposition himself and picked up his book again.
"In one thing you have not changed, dear friend, said Aragorn: you still speak in riddles. What? In riddles? said Gandalf. No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying…"
He didn't listen to much more as he began to drift off again. The Barons voice was velvet to his ears, it made him relax and settle down and made him feel at peace.
When he wakes again its light out and someone is fussing over him. He can feel wires and sticky pads on his chest and knows they are taking vitals. And making sure he is okay.
He opens his eyes slowly to the bright room. And notices Zemo is gone but Sam is there, and music is playing from his phone set on the other side table. He recognizes the music almost right away being Frank Sinatra.
He tries to reach for Sam's phone but is hand is buckled down to the rail of the hospital bed with what he can only assume is vibranium.
"Turn off the damn Sinatra Wilson" he croaks out and he finally notices its Shuri placing sensors on him.
"Welcome back to the living white wolf" she quips before Sam can say anything else. "How are you feeling"
"Like I was run over by a tank and then some" he manages weakly.
"Well, I DID hit you pretty hard wit the shield, how's the head man"
"Yes, Yes Sam Wilson! Using that god forsaken giant frisbee to rattle this poor man's brain"
"how… how is it up there, did I kill anyone Sam?" it all floods back to him. He was activated but he can't remember by who. But he was sent to kill Zemo.
"If you mean in your head. Scans show me all the same information as the last time James. Nothing new, nothing less than we knew before"
He takes a few unsteady breaths trying to calm himself, trying to center his thinking.
"But someone activated me… Ayo tried. She said I was free. Zemo… he tried, and it didn't work…
"But yes. Someone did in fact activate you wolf." He craned his neck to follow her as she paced the room. "But we don't know how."
"Sam, did I kill anyone" he is frantic now and the look on his friends' face says it all and the bow of his head only confirms it.
"They rescinded your pardon Buck" that part he had figured out easily on his own. He had blown up historic base, killed at least one or more people on his 'mission' to the raft. Stolen US property and yeah… tried to kill Zemo, speaking of.
"And Zemo?"
"Nothing a few stitches wont help heal" it was Shuri who answered him this time.
"And…" he coughed a few times and Sam held out a glass of water for him to drink from. He took a big gulp before trying to continue "And the Dora Milaje is okay with him here"
There was an uncomfortable Silence that fell over the room. Sam got up quickly and left the room without saying anything else.
"I suppose it is time we have a conversation, James." Shuri stopped fussing over him then and sat down heavily into the chair Sam had previously occupied. "Now, you need to remain calm, if you do. I Will take you to see my brotha"
"I promise I will remain as calm as I can if you'd just explain to me what's going on."
Shuri leaned forward and took a deep breath. She waved over the bands restraining him and they popped open quickly.
"steady while I help you up."
She may have been small, but she was strong and helped him up. He wasn't super steady on his feet, a bit wobbly but he would manage, he had gotten through much worse.
She had led him through a few winding hallways, up and elevator and finally to a cliff side that overlooked a large part of Wakanda. There at the near edge of the cliff stood not just Zemo, but Sam, Ayo and Ramonda, Shuri's and T'Challa's Queen mother.
They had all been standing close together looking down at something, and as he drew nearer Zemo knelt, left something on the ground, got up turned and walked past him, leaving him a spot beside Sam so he could see what everyone was gathered for.
As he stepped into the spot Zemo had just been his heart and Body betrayed him. He dropped to his knees and understood why everyone was here now.
Before him was a grave of sorts. A stone stood in the ground shaped like a panther.
It read
"King T'Challa 1980-2023 Long may he rein in our kingdom and the next"
A hand Came to both of his shoulders. He looked up to his right and Sam kept looking forward, bringing a tissue to his eyes with his other hand. And to his left Shuri had placed a hand on his other shoulder.
"When my Brotha was brought back… he was fine at first, but fell very ill, very fast." Her voice wasn't much more than a whisper "He didn't last more than a month even with everything I tried" he could hear her voice quivering on the verge of tears. "He fought so hard, but in the end the sickness took him"
Finally, the tears overtook her eyes, and she went to her mother to be held. He just stayed there. In the dirt his hand clenching and unclenching in the dirt bellow him. Eventually Ayo escorted the queen mother away with Shuri. Sam had tried to get him up, but he refused to leave.
It was getting dark by the time he changed positions and brought his legs under himself. He sat cross legged, watching the sun set over the king's grave. He felt the obligation to sit here with his friend. He wasn't sure why, but T'Challa had done so much for him, and why, only because Steve asked. No one else wanted to help Bucky, but Wakanda kept him, tried to help him. gave him a new life. The king had been so kind and then asked him to gear up for another fight.
They had both lost 5 years during the blip. And only to come back into yet another battle together for what… his family to lose him yet again.
So now all that was left of the avengers… was who; The hulk, Barton, Thor…
They had lost Steve, Tony, Natasha and now T'Challa
How much more loss could he handle.
