"Can I help you with that?"
Bucky stared at the artisan bread loaf on the platter between them. Of all the things he surprised himself by being able to do one-handed, he hadn't thought that a loaf of bread would get the better of him. He quirked his mouth into a vague smile and looked up at Steve. "I think you're going to have to if you want any for yourself."
Bucky watched as Steve set to work slicing the loaf into manageable pieces, giving the task far more focus than it deserved. They'd touched down in Wakanda a little over 36 hours ago and gotten a first-class tour of the fanciest medical facility he had ever seen. It out-did anything he could have imagined.
Despite how different it was from any lab he'd been in, there were enough commonalities to make his stomach uneasy. He had no idea if the food would stay down, even though the feast on the table looked and smelled delicious. In addition to the artisan bread, there were skewers of meat, a collection of flatbread and cheeses, and plates of fruits and vegetables.
Steve looked up with a flicker of a smile. "This sure beats any of the meals we had growing up."
Shuri set them up in a suite that was overwhelmingly luxurious. The floors were polished black stone with ornate area rugs. Each room held a bed that was as wide as a King but longer than any he had ever seen. Purple bedding and murals added splashes of color. He had yet to try out the mattress. He was used to sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor in Romania, and that was a leap above most of his prior accommodations. He'd slept in abandoned warehouses, homeless shelters, and under bridges. He never imagined he'd be sleeping in a place like this.
He and Steve hadn't had a chance to talk. Bucky barely remembered the flight from Siberia to Wakanda. The blast that severed his titanium arm also fried the neural connections. If not for the serum and the fact that Hydra routinely electrocuted his brain, perversely giving him some sort of resistance to electricity, he'd be dead. For real.
Now that they were alone together, Bucky had no idea how he was supposed to act. He was battling a residual headache and about a thousand other aches and pains all over his body. There was a dull ache in his left shoulder that he knew would be 100 times worse without the nerve dampener they'd attached at the crook of his neck. He was grateful they'd found something to take the edge off, even if it did make the left side of his torso feel numb and puffy. Sometimes he even felt pins and needles in a hand that didn't exist. Hydra never cared about pain management, and with the serum, they didn't bother trying to find something that would work.
He was too tired to dwell on what was next, but he couldn't stop thinking about what had already happened. After two years on the run, ten words turned him back into a killer, and that killer was still inside him. He was a wanted man, and Steve was a fugitive because of him. The others who tried to help him were locked up in a high-security prison in the middle of the ocean.
Steve set a couple of slices of bread on Bucky's plate and asked, "What else do you want?"
"I can take it from here. Thanks."
He might as well start figuring out how to navigate life with one arm. He wasn't likely to get a new one soon, and considering how deadly the previous one made him, he wasn't sure he wanted another one. The Wakandans promised him sanctuary, and if he had to spend the rest of his life with one arm, that was a far better fate than he deserved. It was a far better existence than he had as Hydra's puppet.
He'd already figured out how to put on socks and underwear. Tying boots was out of the question, but Shuri had given him a couple pairs of slip-ons. He couldn't tie his hair back, so it hung around his face. Maybe he could round up some scissors and cut it back enough to keep it out of his eyes.
There were periods in the past when he'd been without the use of both arms. After the Russians captured him, there was a stretch of time — he wasn't sure how long, and the details were fuzzy — before they'd created the prototype metal arm when he'd existed without his left arm. The days stretched into one another. Most were spent in a dark cell, in pain, with experimental drugs in his system. Those memories were fuzzy, and that was no doubt a small blessing.
The Hydra arm had been heavy and painful, but despite its drawbacks, it provided him with a functioning limb and fingers that responded to his brain. He was still getting used to the change in his balance. Without the prosthetic, he was lighter on his left side, yet he still overcompensated for the fifty pounds he expected to be there.
Shuri had patched up his shoulder remarkably well. He didn't remember the surgery. He remembered being on the plane, and he had a vague sense of landing, but the next thing he recalled was waking up in a bright room with people in white around him and a young woman's smiling face hovering over him. That was the first time he set eyes on Shuri.
She looked impossibly young, but with confidence beyond her years, and seemed to believe that she could get the Hydra crap out of his head. He didn't know what to do other than take things one day at a time… one task at a time.
The current task was dinner. His body needed 12,000 calories a day to function well. To heal quickly, he needed to give it enough fuel. He filled his plate with flatbread and skewers of meat. Those, at least, would be easy to manage one-handed.
The space between Steve and him was heavy with unasked questions that Bucky was grateful Steve kept to himself. Zemo hit the mark when he mentioned the horrors in Bucky's head. Bucky was telling the truth when he said he didn't want to talk about it. He wouldn't even know where to begin.
Every time Steve looked at him, something coiled tight in Bucky's gut. How many times had Steve replayed in his head the footage of Bucky killing the Starks? With every glance Steve sent his way, Bucky felt exposed. Guilty. Like he was taking up space he had no right to occupy. Space that others deserved far more than he.
He finished eating and stood up to start stacking plates when everything tilted. He collided with cool stone. A frantic beeping came from his left, and the pins and needles that plagued him burst into hot pain that snaked into the center of his chest and down his back. His headache popped like a firecracker at the base of his skull.
"Crap, Bucky… Hold on. Stay still."
Steve's fingers brushed the hair out of his face. The touch was gentle and warm, a stark contrast to the cold hard surface beneath him. A hand slid down his neck, followed by a pressure at the top of his shoulder, and the pain faded. The puffy feeling returned to the left side of his torso, and his full stomach churned uneasily. He curled against the wave of nausea and closed his eyes, focusing on keeping the sensation at bay. He would not throw up on the floor.
"Should I call someone?" Steve asked, one hand settling on Bucky's metal shoulder.
Bucky shook his head. He swallowed and forced a slow, deep breath through his nose. After a moment, the nausea passed. He opened his eyes to see Steve's face, brow crinkled and lips pressed into a tight line.
"I'm okay." Bucky looked around to orient himself. He was on the floor, his right shoulder pressed into the hard stone, but he wasn't sure why he fell. He must've overcompensated when he tried to stand, but that didn't explain the beeping or sudden pain. "I guess I'm still getting used to not lugging around 50 pounds on my left side." He rolled onto his back and sat up.
Steve's arm slid behind him for support. "The nerve dampener came off when you hit the floor. Good thing I was paying attention when Shuri gave her discharge instructions. I hope I put it back on the right spot. How does it feel?"
Bucky gingerly rolled his left shoulder and rubbed his fingers across the circular disk at the base of his neck. "It feels right. Thanks." He tried for a light smile, but with the heat in his cheeks, he was pretty sure he looked about as idiotic as he felt. "I'm gonna give the standing thing another try."
"You used to box, remember?" Steve hooked an arm around his and helped him up.
"Yeah." He'd been good enough to live off his winnings, even during the Great Depression. "I remember."
"This is the first time I've seen you knock yourself down." Steve cocked an eyebrow and patted him on the back. "Gravity won the first round, but I'm sure you'll make a comeback in the second."
The jab was so unexpected that he snorted, and the hollowness in his chest filled with a nostalgic warmth. "You're still a smartass." He was steady on his feet now, but Steve's hand lingered on his arm.
"So I've been told." Steve's smile reached his eyes and hovered there as he studied Bucky.
There were those unasked questions again, lurking behind that unwavering gaze. He saw the moment of decision in those eyes and turned away, hoping that would be enough of a signal to stay Steve's tongue. It wasn't.
"Did you remember me when you pulled me out of the river?" Steve asked.
He gave the same answer he'd given in the Bucharest apartment. It was half lie, half-truth. "I don't know."
He couldn't call it remembering. There were flashes, the sting of emotions he could barely identify, and an overwhelming urge that somehow overrode all of Hydra's conditioning. He'd known that he knew the man in a way that should not have been possible.
"You remembered me at some point." Steve shifted to stand in front of him. "Before I walked into your apartment in Bucharest, you remembered enough. Why did you keep running from me?"
How could he explain something to Steve he didn't fully understand himself? There was a part of him that had desperately wanted to find Steve, but there was another part of him that demanded he stay far away. There had been and still was a bomb in his head. If it went off, people around him could get hurt… They had gotten hurt.
If it went off, and he came to only to discover that he had killed Steve, there'd be nothing left for him to do but put a bullet in his head. Staying away from Steve was protecting them both.
It was all too twisted and painful to put into words. Any information he could give Steve would only lead to more questions, and he didn't have it in him to answer them. He survived by slamming the door on things inside him that were too much to bear. If he opened that door even a crack, he'd drown in the horrors released.
Steve was still waiting for an answer, shoulders squared and arms hanging at his sides, but Bucky couldn't give him one, so he stepped around and headed toward the bathroom.
"I'm going to take a shower." Bucky hurried into the bathroom and closed the door behind him before Steve could follow.
It took him a few minutes to figure out how to work the shower. There were no knobs or handles, just flat panels set into a black stone wall. After some trial and error, he got the water running at an acceptable temperature and stripped out of his clothes.
The clink of plates and silverware told him that Steve was cleaning up. Bucky stayed under the spray longer than necessary. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to the warm water pounding against his face and caressing his back. He wished he could stay there long enough to wash away the stench of the Winter Soldier, but nothing could do that. For the rest of his life, however long that might be, the past 70 years would be with him.
He turned off the water and grabbed a white towel off the wall. Drying himself with one arm proved a challenge. He rubbed the towel along his front and left side, then his legs. The best he could do with his back was to fling the towel over his shoulders and hope he made enough contact to soak up some of the water.
There was no way he'd be able to dry himself enough with one hand to keep fabric from sticking to his damp body. He sat on the toilet to make getting into his boxers easier, then hung the towel back on the rack and scooped up his clothes. Suddenly, he regretted closing the bathroom door. With only one arm, he had to do things in a specific order and, setting the clothes on top of the toilet seat, he opened the door and bundled the pile of clothes beneath his arm.
The dining table in their shared suite was clean. He wasn't sure how dishes worked here, but Steve evidently figured it out. Their hosts were more than generous with the accommodations. Steve was sitting on the bed, legs splayed out with a laptop resting on his knees. Bucky wasn't sure if it was a computer that had been in the jet or one the Wakandans supplied, nor did he know what Steve was looking at. It was none of his business. If he remembered the man accurately, he was probably catching up on the news, the Accords, and trying to find information about his friends, including Tony Stark.
Steve looked up at him, indecision flickering across his face. It all suddenly seemed so absurd. They had been closer than brothers for 20 years. Both of them should be dead, but here they were, a lifetime later, familiar strangers. Bucky's feet carried him to his bedroom, but he stopped in the doorway, feeling Steve's eyes on him. The conversation wasn't over. Steve might let it lie for a little bit, but he'd press for answers. He couldn't help himself. It was in his nature.
Bucky tossed his clothes on the floor in his room and turned around. Wet strands of hair clung to the sides of his face and snaked beneath his jaw. The phantom fingers of his left hand tingled, and he glanced down to confirm there was nothing there.
His eyes settled on the empty space where his hand should be. Even though the limb had been metal, it sometimes hurt, as if haunted by the flesh arm it replaced. Just as, in a way, Bucky Barnes had haunted the Winter Soldier.
Now, the Winter Soldier haunted him—in his dreams and in the memories that sprang forth unexpectedly and sometimes blurred into reality. Just like the arm that wasn't there, there were other pieces of himself missing that he could still feel.
When did Steve get up? He was standing within arm's reach, a crease between his brows and something vaguely apologetic in his eyes. Bucky could remember him smaller, and the image was clearer in his mind now than it had ever been before.
They'd fought for one another, over and over again, as kids, as soldiers, and as friends. Steve was a fugitive now because of him. Good people sacrificed their freedom for his. If Steve wanted answers, what right did Bucky have not to give them?
He needed to try, even if he couldn't give the details Steve wanted. He could step carefully around the landmines. Maybe that would be enough for now.
It was suddenly harder to breathe, so he leaned against the doorjamb and gripped it with his hand to anchor himself. "I know what you want to know." He forced himself to meet Steve's eyes. "I can't talk about that. Not now. Maybe not ever. But you asked why I didn't seek you out. Why I ran from you."
Steve nodded slowly, his expression going soft and his eyes wide.
Bucky took a breath. "I didn't exactly remember you, not the way you think. I knew you. They were flashes. Feelings. Like trying to remember a dream. I did visit the museum. I don't know how to put it into words, but I didn't know what I used to be until I read about it, and I couldn't make sense of it. I knew it was true. It felt true, but I didn't remember any of it, just images, bits and pieces. But I had the sickening sense that it was all so very wrong. That I was wrong. I was something horrible, not really human, and I didn't know if I ever would be. I just knew that I had this thing in my head, and it would let them control me. I couldn't let that happen… But it did, anyway. I hurt people. Again. I don't know how to live with this in my head, knowing that anyone who says ten words can make me do whatever they want, make me kill whoever they want."
Steve reached out and gripped Bucky's right shoulder. It was a touch full of warmth and promises. "That won't happen again, not here."
Bucky wished he could believe that with the same conviction that Steve held.
Steve's grip tightened and he slid closer, his eyes shimmering. The history between them was too big for words. There was a cacophony of grief and longing in Steve's eyes and a hint of desperation in the press of his fingers into the back of Bucky's shoulder.
There were no words, only touch, breath, and yearning—yearning for who they used to be, for the two boys with an unwritten future and a head full of fantasies. Somewhere, deep inside, Bucky knew that boy was still there, buried beneath almost a century of horrors. Little Steve was there, too. He always had been.
It all dropped away from him, like a rollercoaster plunging toward Earth, and he found himself leaning forward on weak legs, his forehead pressed to the crook of Steve's neck, struggling to breathe while listening to the hitch of air moving in and out of Steve's lungs and the steady beat of his heart.
If he could stay like this forever, he would, but time took away all things, just as it would take away this.
"I'm sorry." Steve breathed. The warmth of his palm wrapped around the back of Bucky's neck. "You were always there for me. Always. Even when I had nothing; and the one time you needed me, I failed. All I had to do was reach out and grab you, and I couldn't even do that."
"Don't." Bucky wrapped his arm around Steve's back, his fingers twisting into the fabric of the cotton T-shirt. He couldn't bear the weight of his own regrets. He'd break completely beneath the burden of Steve's.
The door that he'd slammed shut inside him was cracking open. He couldn't let it. If he did, he wouldn't have the strength to shut it again. He pulled back, wiping at the wetness on his cheeks that mirrored the glistening tracks on Steve's. "If that was payback for the Cyclone, it was overkill, don't you think?"
In response to the shadow of horror that darkened Steve's face, Bucky pushed a smile from his. He relaxed as the lines in Steve's forehead melted and his lips twitched upward.
"You're a jerk," Steve said.
"So I've been told." He could settle in the casual familiarity between them… For now. It was as much a sanctuary as this place. "That bed is big enough to fit all the Howlies. I'm gonna see if it's as comfortable as it looks. Good night, Steve."
"Good night, Buck."
Bucky closed the door and slipped beneath the covers. He'd never slept on anything like the mattress. He wasn't sure he could fall asleep, but he could rest, entombed by the dark silence. It was almost as if the world didn't exist, and he was floating in a void.
He focused on the keys clacking softly in the other room as Steve worked on the laptop. The very image made his mouth twitch with amusement. Growing up, neither he nor Steve could have imagined computers, let alone ones small enough to fit on a lap or the palm of the hand.
He drifted toward sleep. The line between reality and dream blurred. The darkness became almost suffocating. The cackle of electricity had him flinching awake. It was still dark. The softness beneath him and the faint sound of the computer brought him back to reality.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, focusing on the silky feeling of the bed sheets and soft noises coming from the other room. He'd read dozens of books on meditation, self-hypnosis, and sleep disorders during his two years on the run, all in an attempt to get to a place where he could function like a normal human being, but out of all the pages he'd read, the things he found most useful were simple grounding exercises and a few meditation techniques.
He worked on the relaxation exercises, focusing on the tip of his skull and working his way down to his toes. Gradually, it began to work, and he felt himself drifting again, flirting with sleep until it claimed him.
"Zhelaney."
Pain blossomed in the base of his skull. "No."
"Rzhaviy."
A ringing grew in his ears.
The words continued, but in a disembodied voice surrounded by darkness. He knew that voice better than his own. Karpov. With each utterance, he slipped deeper and deeper into the abyss. He struggled, flailing against the dark nothingness, drowning, as each word stole pieces of him, leaving an emptiness desperate to be filled with purpose.
On the ninth word, he broke free, launching himself up, limbs tangled in something soft and restraining. He came fully awake when he hit the floor, chest heaving as he sucked in deep breaths, and whipped his head around, taking a few seconds to come back to himself.
There was a strip of light beneath the door. Footsteps approached from the other side. He fought against the fabric wrapped around him until his back hit something hard. A fist pounded on the door. A voice called his name. He knew that voice.
Steve.
Bucky blinked, clearing the remnants of the dream from his brain. "I'm fine."
He tried to push away the blanket twisted around his arm and legs, but with only one arm he lacked leverage. He kicked at the covers and wiggled his right arm until he freed himself. Strands of hair poked at his eyes and he raised a shaking hand to brush it back as he put one leg in front of him to get to his feet.
The doorknob jiggled. The door swung open. A figure stood there, a broad-shouldered silhouette bathed by the light from behind.
"Are you okay, Bucky?"
They both knew the answer to that question. When Steve took a step forward, Bucky held his hand up and dropped to the edge of the mattress. "Stop."
The dream felt real. What if it happened in his sleep? Could it happen in his sleep? In the two years he'd been on his own, he always woke up on the ninth word. What if one day he didn't?
His pulse thundered in his ears, and his limbs trembled in the aftermath of adrenaline. He didn't trust himself. One word spoken in a dream might have awakened the killer inside him. Maybe that killer hadn't gained control, but he was still there, waiting on that final word.
His skin tingled. His brain cataloged the environment — the faint whir of electronics, the rhythm of Steve's breathing and the roar of his own sounding like restless ocean waves beating against the shoreline. The scent of cotton, sweat, and something vaguely cinnamon filled each breath.
Steve hovered there, just inside the doorway, his face in shadows.
Bucky fell back on the mattress and stared up into the darkness. "I'm going to try to get back to sleep. Can you close the door?" He could feel the thing inside him, shifting beneath the surface. He needed distance between him and Steve.
Steve hesitated in silence for a moment, then sighed and walked into the room. Bucky tracked him in the periphery of his vision. Steve bent forward, grabbed the crumpled blanket from the floor and shook it out.
"Okay," Steve said.
The warmth of the blanket settled around him, and Bucky managed an appreciative smile as Steve adjusted it around his shoulders. He remembered doing the same thing for Steve so many times, before the serum cured Steve of his ailments.
Steve left him alone, closing the door and plunging the room into darkness once again. Bucky wasn't sure how long he lay there. Hours maybe, until the strip of light beneath the closed door faded, and he was sure Steve was asleep. Bucky cycled through all the tricks he knew to fall asleep. He made his mind blank, pictured himself lying in the dark room that he was in, and focused on his breathing. When that didn't work, he took himself through relaxation exercises.
Eventually, he drifted, hovering in the space between sleep and consciousness, when he heard Zemo's voice shout the final word. "Gruzovoy vagon."
Freight car.
Another voice broke the darkness. "Two targets, level six. I want confirmed death in six hours."
Bucky opened his eyes. He was standing over a bed. His body felt heavy. There was something in his hand. He looked at it, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness and his brain a second to interpret the object in his hand as a knife. Inky liquid dripped from the blade, plopping onto the blanket where a figure lay motionless.
The smell of blood was in the air. Blue eyes stared up at him, still and empty.
Steve.
Oh God, Steve.
No. No. No. No.
"Bucky? What are you doing?"
The voice shot through his brain like a jolt of electricity. He stumbled back, and suddenly there was no knife in his hand, no blood. All he smelled was the faint odor of sweat and dirty socks somewhere on the floor.
Steve sat up, throwing the covers off and looking at the Bucky, his eyebrows almost coming together.
He hadn't killed Steve. It had been a dream. Just a dream. A warning from deep inside his mind, where the truth lurked.
"I'm not safe, Steve."
All the emotions battled for dominance. Relief that he hadn't killed Steve. Terror when he thought he had. Grief for the parts of himself he would never get back. Rage at the things that were done to him and that he had been forced to do to others.
He must've lost a few seconds, because he was suddenly huddled against the wall, sobbing, with Steve's arms wrapped around him. Another emotion rose, turning his cheeks hot. He turned his face away from Steve and pressed his forehead to the wall even as his fingers gripped Steve's forearm as if it were the only thing tethering him to reality.
"It's gonna be okay, Buck," Steve whispered. "I watched interviews of your neighbors in the Bucharest department. They all said you were polite and quiet. An older lady said you seemed kind and often helped her with her groceries. You never hurt any of them. You won't hurt me."
Steve had too much faith in him and no sense of self-preservation. Bucky struggled for control between gulps of breath until finally, he was spent. He sagged in Steve's arms, his head resting against the wall
"As long as these words are in my head, I can't trust my own mind." Hydra had found a way to neutralize him in between missions, and they weren't anywhere as advanced as the Wakandans. In the morning, he'd talk to Shuri or T'Challa.
If Hydra had cryogenic technology that could safely freeze him, surely the Wakandans did, too. Even if they didn't have something ready, with what he'd already seen, he was positive they could make something.
Steve's arms slid away, but he kept a grounding palm against Bucky's back. "What are you saying, Buck?"
There was a sudden lump in Bucky's throat. The mere thought of going back under made him shiver. He could smell the chemicals in the cryo-chamber. His ears picked up the faint hiss of compressed gasses being released, even though he knew that was impossible. It was all in his head.
He hated the thought of stepping into that chamber, but it was the only way to ensure he wouldn't wake up one day and realize he'd killed the only person in the world who cared about him. "I'm going to ask them to put me back on ice until they can figure out a way to free my mind."
He listened without interrupting as Steve argued there was another way, that Wakanda was safe and he could live a peaceful life here until they figured out how to help him. He let Steve get it all out, desperation in his voice that tore a hole straight through Bucky.
They'd promised each other till the end of the line, but Bucky had to step off the train. He hoped it was only temporary, and that by the time he hopped back on, there'd be enough track ahead of them both to make the rest of the journey a little more bearable.