Chapter 3: Alone in My Casket

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Choking on ice. No one knows he's alive. He's been here before, served up for Death. The other five died in formaldehyde jars. "In their sleep," says Zemo. Tells him he'll die in his. And he's caught. Can't move. Knows what's coming. Sometimes it's Pierce, other times Karpov. Or Peggy or Stark. Howard and Maria. Or Fury or Wilson. There's plenty lined up. And Mom and Rebecca. Tonight, it's Steve. And they're all lined up for their pound of flesh. Hard cold metal pressed to his temple. Steve racks the slide and chambers the round. He tries to scream 'No!' but his mouth is stitched shut and the firing pin clicks as Steve pulls the trigger-

Bucky sat bolt upright in bed, tensed for the shot. Put out an arm to brace himself - an arm that wasn't there - and fell. Instinct kicked in, or maybe an old memory of pain. He twisted his torso, flipped onto his other side before his stump hit the mattress, and lay there gasping for air, his heart pounding in his chest, skin slick with sweat. A nightmare, he realized as the urgency faded. He'd had it before. He rolled onto his back and forced his breathing to slow, willed his muscles to relax.

When he was in control again, he pushed himself up with the arm he still had and got out of bed. Ran his hand through his hair, caught sight of himself in the mirror. Flashbacked to another life… Brooklyn, early 1930s. Him and Steve still kids. Saturday afternoon, sneaking into the movies. Colin Clive shouting, "It's alive!" Boris Karloff writhing in flames. Frankenstein's monster. Dead men remade…

He tore his gaze away from his reflection. No wonder the world wanted him locked away. Better if his caretakers had kept him in cryo - a kind of a prison anyway - but thank God they hadn't. At least he could wake up, escape from the nightmares. Except he couldn't, not really. The waking hours carried their own special torment - the knowledge of what he had been, what he had done. The sick feeling that he would never be able to make up for even a fraction of it... Whatever happened to him now, well, he had it coming. But he sure as hell didn't want to be frozen again.

He'd only done it for Steve, and maybe the others who had helped him (though he knew they were really only helping Steve.) From start to finish, he had been nothing but bad news. Three, four years ago, he would have killed any and all of them without hesitation and now he had cost them their jobs, their reputations, family and friends, and even their freedom in one way or another. He had driven a wedge between Steve and Tony Stark, and because of him the Avengers had ripped themselves apart, in every way they could. And worst of all, Steve had lost the life he'd made for himself in this new century.

Afterwards, during those first few weeks when the Cap had stayed with him here in Wakanda, his friend had tried to convince him it was Zemo and the Sokovia Accords that had ruined everything; it was just crummy luck that Bucky had been caught in the middle of it all. But Bucky knew better. He'd figured going back on ice was the only decent thing to do. No more bad news and never mind how he felt at the thought of stepping back into another one of those suffocating cryo-chambers, left behind once again while the world moved on. He had managed as much of a smile as he was capable of that day, and then he'd taken a deep breath and closed his eyes. The best thing. For everybody…

But not for him as it turned out. He had never had any concept of time passing in cryo before. No dreams either. Until this last stretch. And then he'd learned the true meaning of the words 'eternal damnation'. T'Challa said things had been normal for the first year or so and then his readings had gone off the charts. That was when the nightmares had started, or so they told him. They'd brought him out less than a week later, but that handful of days had taken him to the end of time and back again. Everyone he'd ever killed had been there with him and he'd killed them all again. Over and over until he was drenched in their blood, had the sick-sweet stench of it in his nostrils, the metal-tang taste in his mouth. He was so stuffed full of shame it was a wonder he could move, and yet he pulled the trigger, wielded the knife, snuffed out lives like they were nothing. There was no stopping him. And the words too, in his blood and his bones, his very sinews. Holding him fast, tearing him apart. He had no idea where the Winter Soldier ended and James Buchanan Barnes began, and that terrified him almost beyond bearing. When they'd dragged him out of the chamber, his near-collapse had been due more to relief than the physical effects of coming out of cryo.

And he tried not to think about that too much either. Because for a brief, shining moment he had thought he was cured, or about to be cured. Why else would they bring him out? It had been a kick in the guts to discover the Wakandan scientists weren't even close to getting rid of the trigger words Hydra had seared into his brain. Might never be…

Clenching his fist, he put the brakes on his thoughts. Stared around the room. Tried to find something - anything - to distract himself. A waste of time, he knew, but it sure beat the hell out of spending time inside his own head. The suite he had been given was bland and business-like, set aside for visiting scientists and devoid of any personal touches. Granted, it was better than anything he'd had during the last seventy years, but it wasn't his and it wasn't home… As if he even knew what that was anymore. Hell, he couldn't even imagine -

Bucky pulled himself up short. He was sliding back into his head, getting sappy again. A quick glance at the clock told him it was 4 a.m. The sun would be up in a few hours and sleep was impossible now anyway. Time to hit the library. There were whole worlds in there that had nothing to do with Bucky Barnes or Winter Soldiers or the shitfest that was his life. He could lose himself in the books for a while.

He grabbed a t-shirt out of a drawer, sat down on the edge of the bed and arranged it over his thighs then manoeuvred into it. His biggest accomplishment so far, he thought as he pulled the front down over his chest. Learning to dress and take care of himself with one arm. And it was a big deal. It meant he didn't have to rely on anyone - not for the personal stuff, at least - and he was more than happy about that. He stood up, took his room key and swipe card off the nightstand and shoved them into the pocket of his pajama pants. As he headed towards the door, he frowned. There was still a whole crowd of people he had to rely on for other things though - physiotherapists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, prosthetists, doctors, nurses, scientists… all working to fix some part of him. The lock on the door clicked behind him and he started off down the verandah.

It wasn't that he wasn't grateful for their efforts. He knew what they were trying to do, and what's more they treated him like he mattered. Included him in decisions about his rehabilitation, almost tiptoed around his feelings. It was just… he wasn't used to it. Hydra had hauled him around like a slab of meat for almost seventy years. Stored him like one too when he wasn't on a 'mission' or undergoing weapons and field training. And the two years during which he'd managed to disappear off the radar – before Zemo had set his sights on him – had in no way prepared him for what was happening now either. He'd been always on the move and it had been safer - easier - to keep to himself and hold other people at bay as he pieced together his past. But now, to be thrust into all… this.

He reached the path between the med labs and the library, and stopped to check his surroundings before crossing the short stretch of open ground. Unnecessary, he knew, but a force of habit anyway. It was still and quiet. Dark too, except for the faint glow of a security light around the corner to his right. Nothing out of the ordinary. He liked to come here at dusk and watch the lightning bugs. They strung themselves out in the undergrowth and lit up the place like Christmas. Reminded him of the tree lighting ceremonies in McCarren Park, before the war. Throngs of people, the buzz of the crowd, linking arms and singing carols. Music from the band. Speeches and soda. Getting smiles from pretty girls. Him and Steve, laughing and joking…

There were never any people around when he watched the fireflies here in Wakanda. No music or laughter either. Once the therapists and scientists had gone home for the day, he was the only one left in the fenced-off complex. A nurse had been rostered on for the first few nights but it soon become apparent that that was not necessary. And besides, Bucky was pretty sure the man had been - uneasy at being left alone at night with a brainwashed assassin.

Arriving at the entrance to the library, he stopped and put his hand in his pocket for the swipe card - and froze. The dim night light in the foyer - visible through the glass front doors - was expected. The ribbon of light under the solid internal door beyond that was not. He was the only one who used the library now and he knew he'd turned off the main lights when he'd left earlier that night.

Senses sharpened, focus fixed (some things never changed), he tested the front doors. They were still locked. A sweep of the building's perimeter showed no sign of a break-in but he discovered an unlocked door at the rear. He cast his eye around for something to use as a weapon and spotted a length of pipe nearby. Left behind by the fencing crew, he guessed. He picked it up and hefted it in his hand; it would do the job.

The unlocked door opened onto a passageway that ran past the bathrooms and led to a back entrance to the library. Bucky swore under his breath as he was forced to put down his makeshift weapon; he would have preferred two hands right now. Pushing the second door open a crack, he scanned the room but the library was all angles and bookshelves and he swore again because he couldn't see very much. Couldn't hear anything either, so that was something. He held the door open with his foot, picked up the pipe, and slipped through.

The bookshelves and walls made for good cover, at least, and he silently worked his way around the room, checking out the hidden gaps and spaces as he closed in on the main study area. So far, so good, he thought as he approached the last corner. Nothing and no one. But as he was about to step out into the open, he stopped short. His eyes were drawn straight away to the low-slung couch in the middle of the room and he stared in confusion. Time shifted. The room too. Brooklyn again, late 1920s. Before the moneymen took a nosedive and times got even harder. Rug-covered floorboards, dainty floral wallpaper, sturdy green drapes pulled against the night. The small, cosy parlor of home. A polished oak table, dark and heavy under the soft, yellow glow of a floor lamp. His mom's prized Quaker Lace tablecloth pushed to one side. Buckles and bows, sequins and beads, broken shells and pretty stones, all spilled out on the table, glinting in the light. And him and Becky, heads bent together, poring over the treasures.

He blinked, and the room shifted back. Time too. Books stacked on shelves, scanned and catalogued. Desks with computers. Sleek modern lines… Wakanda. He was in Wakanda, not Brooklyn. Whole lifetimes had passed, and he had to be dreaming. Because curled up on the couch in a Wakandan library, in a froth of sea-green lace and a cloud of wild, coal-black curls, was the fairy from the lid of his mom's old knick-knack tin.