Winter of the White Wolf

Chapter 15 - Sanctuary

As the first fringes of sunrise crept in through the edges of the curtains, Bucky found himself laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling as the room came into focus and he tried to wrap his mind around what were dreams, what were echoes of memory, and what remained.

The view from the floor filled his vision: tall walls bespoke with bright geometric patterns that sung clearly to the interior design aesthetics of Wakanda, and for a moment, just a flicker of a heartbeat, he felt himself instinctually calm in response. Something deep within him still connected the place and the people living there with a feeling of peace.

And seconds later, harsh reality shattered down upon him.

He took a deep breath, working to calm his nerves as he reached a tentative hand to confirm that yes, the other arm wasn't there. He kept his hand in place over the empty socket, drinking in the absence of it and the vast venn diagram of reasons for it. He remembered feeling such a profound sense of betrayal back in Latvia about the failsafe. Now, as he laid there on the floor, he realized he was probably lucky Ayo hadn't taken it right then and there. He'd caught that curse on her lips, "Bast damn you, James," and he'd been so focused on his own feelings of betrayal at the moment that then, even then, he hadn't stopped to really consider her feelings on any of it.

He tried to turn his neck, but found whole body ached in a way that was stifling, and his throat was so dry that he was surprised there was any moisture left to lick his chapped lips. He tasted the familiar hint of metal: his lips must still be cracked and bleeding. If they hadn't healed overnight on account of the serum running through his veins, that was saying something to how dehydrated he truly was.

"You up?"

Oh right. Sam.

He narrowed his eyes as he calculated the trajectory for the origin of the voice, and looked to his left to see the man with his head propped up on his pillow as he put aside the phone he must have been buying time with. He really had spent the night on the floor there beside him? God, he really was that stubborn?

"Getting there." Bucky managed, "You been up long?"

"Half an hour maybe. Sarah texted me."

He felt a pang of concern rise up in him, "Everything okay?"

"Oh yeah. Just forgot to check-in with her and the boys last night and she wanted to make sure we were doing okay. Were excited to hear we were visiting Wakanda," Sam reflected, "I think they imagine it's some kinda country club for black folks, except with lots of exotic wild animals."

Bucky managed a hint of a smile at that and used his free hand to push himself up so his back was against the wall, "I mean, they're not that far off the mark. Just less National Geographic and more science fiction."

Sam lifted one eyebrow in his direction as if he was taken by surprise at Bucky's familiarity to the reference, "Wait National Geographic? Like the channel?"

"The magazine's been around for over a hundred thirty years," Bucky defended with a groan before he found himself stepping to his earliest memories of those yellow-edged tomes, "My parents had a collection stored on these massive wooden bookcases long before I was even born." He stopped himself from thinking too much about the two of them and they fact they'd been dead for nearly what? Ninety of those years? Somehow that old hurt was preferable to the present. He forced himself to refocus on the topic at-hand.

"Delivered by carrier pigeons or was it stagecoaches?" Sam gently teased.

"Ha. Ha," Bucky feigned a laugh before adding, "But anyway, yeah I used to eat that stuff up. To be fair, the newsreels back then were in black and white, just like most of the pages in those early magazines," he acquiesced, "But the view of the world was pretty limited back then too."

Sam shook his head in a friendly gesture, "Still have trouble imagining you as anything near-to a bookworm, even as a kid."

"Wasn't just me," Bucky found himself clarifying, "Steve was an enabler too. When you don't have much growing up, things like public libraries and museums were a welcome sanctuary from, well, everything else." He looked back up at the ceiling, allowing himself to reminisce about things that didn't ache so freshly, "I think he always liked the museums more, though. He'd bring this little notebook along and make pen or pencil sketches and stuff while I went around reading all the captions. I always thought maybe he'd get into that. Art I mean. He studied it over at Auburndale Art School. Well, before the War came back around."

"Huh. Learn something new every day." Sam saw fit to rotate his torso and reposition himself so he was facing Bucky. By the expression on his face, he was working to piece things together, "I remember reading he went to college, but I don't think I'd ever crossed my mind it was an art school."

A question bore itself up in Bucky's mind and he found himself asking, "He ever do any of that with you? Museums and such?"

The man beside him considered the question for a moment but shook his head, "The occasional field trip here and there, but honestly? The man I knew didn't take much time for himself even in the best of times."

There was a momentary dead spot in the conversation as Bucky felt certain Sam was reflecting on the time they'd both no-doubt spent trying to track him down after the Winter Soldier's missions to eliminate first Director Fury, and then Steve Rogers. After flickers of memory had begun to surface, ones he didn't want HYDRA to risk taking away from him again, he'd gotten really, really good at laying low.

"But now that you mention it," Sam added, blissfully keeping the winding conversation on track, "I remember him keeping some sketches on his desk back at the complex. I always assumed they were gifts or something. One was a little monkey riding a unicycle with a shield, on a tightrope, I think?"

Bucky felt a genuine smile briefly pass over his face as he focused on the memory it drummed up, "Surprised he was able to find that one again. He did it way back, out in the field. When they were trying to get him to just travel around and perform charity acts."

"Really?"

"Really." He considered saying more, but the next line of thought led directly from Steve working an unauthorized rescue attempt on his own, straight to Bucky's first test-run being strapped to a lab table courtesy of HYDRA. Nope. He didn't feel the need to go into any of that. Back to safer topics.

Sam to the rescue once again.

"What about you?" He regarded Bucky with a smooth gesture of his hand, and the expression that said he wasn't digging around trying to strike raw pain.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Well you said you thought he might've gotten into art if it wasn't for the War. What about you? Did you have any plans?"

His mouth opened, and then closed. Had anyone ever asked him that? He imagined that when he and Steve were younger, they'd discussed what they'd be doing with their lives when they stepped into the cusp of adulthood, but truth to be told: he didn't have an answer.

"I'm not sure," Bucky admitted. "I finished High School and just… immediately started working to pay the bills. Then the War was at our doorstep and I enlisted. You?"

"Always wanted to be in the Air Force," Sam responded without a moment's hesitation, "Loved the idea of flying free up there. Boots off the ground and all." There was more of that sweet, thoughtful silence of his, "You know, if there's other stuff you'd like to do, it's never too late."

Bucky cast Sam what he hoped was a suitably obnoxious side-eye, "Like what?"

Sam shrugged, "I'm just saying: It's something to consider."

"Combat training is literally one of the only notable skills I have." Saying that out loud didn't feel nearly so good as he thought it would, but he was glad he'd resisted the urge to list off some of the specialized skills his experience entailed.

"Is it?" Sam offered one of those easygoing shrugs of his, "There's a hell of a lot more you have to offer than just that. Just because you've done a lot of a thing doesn't mean that it's a foregone conclusion that's what you have to spend the rest of your working years doing."

He didn't know what to say to that.

"I'm not saying you have to reconsider your trajectory if it's what you enjoy doing. I obviously like having your annoying ass around well enough, and know I can trust you to have my back. That's more than I can say about a lot of folks. I just don't want you to wake up one day and realize you're not living life on your own terms, you know? You deserve to. Just something to consider," Sam concluded with a casual shrug for what was very much not a small topic.

Bucky stayed silent, putting the consideration aside for another time.

"Anyway, I checked in with Torres earlier, and he doesn't have any updates for us, but he said he'd keep his ear to the wire and let us know if that changes. Speaking of: The wireless signals they have here are truly something else. Damn-near instant and didn't even require a password."

"Living in the future," Bucky confirmed, reflecting, "Hard to believe we were back in Symkaria not half a day ago," he stretched and went to rub the sleep out of his eyes and had another one of those moments where he caught himself missing the arm. Sam must have seen something in his expression, because he immediately had those therapist eyes focused on him again. "And before you ask, I did manage a little shut-eye here and there, but I still have no idea what I need to do about any of that from yesterday."

Sam did one of his casual "We'll figure it out" shrugs, "You remember Ayo coming by though, right?"

He made a face, "Yeah. About how she was still angry with me."

"And also sorry for that last bit she said."

"Mmm," Bucky half-acknowledged. He thought about pointing out that she hadn't actually said those words, but Sam was right about the intention. He'd had all variety of insults lobbed his way, including ones from back when Sam was probably still raw about what the Winter Soldier had repeatedly done, or attempted to do to him. Bucky thought he'd developed a pretty thick skin when he brushed off anything from "We're not assassins," to "They cleared the bionic staring machine, and he killed almost everybody he's met." He liked to think he didn't even hold it against Sam back then, either: it felt like Sam was just willing to say what everyone else was thinking when they looked at him.

But Ayo was different. They'd spent over two years seeing each other on a near-daily basis, and yet she'd never made a single remark at his expense.

Not until yesterday.

It felt like she'd taken a knife to him with that one word, said with so much venom and pain and shared history between the two of them.

He pivoted away from that dark pit he'd dug himself, "I'm just glad they didn't take back your suit," he admitted to the room, because that seemed like a statement they could both agree on.

Sam gave him a side-eye that told Bucky he hadn't been the only one to feel relief at that, even if Sam wasn't about to speak the words aloud.

"So there's that silver lining," Bucky concluded with a flourish of his hand.

The other man offered him only a little sigh of acknowledgement, "Well if you have enough energy to be a bit of a smartass: You want to do the honors and get the morning routine going so we can both freshen up and get some breakfast in us? You're probably at least six thousand calories behind where you should be, and I want to find out what actual Wakandan food tastes like."

Sam wasn't wrong about the calories, but he also wasn't feeling the usual morning routine they'd sorted out: the one where Bucky went and did his thing while Sam made phone calls before he'd take his turn using the bathroom. "Nah, you can go first. I'm still waking up." A half-truth.

His friend didn't see fit to debate the change of plans, and got up, putting his things aside onto the nearby couch before grabbing his toiletries and heading into the bathroom. "You better be here when I'm out," he said with no threat to his voice.

While Sam brushed his teeth and cleaned up, Bucky stayed right where he was. He wasn't sure how long he sat there, but his mind had already started to spiral back to that dark place by the time Sam stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

Bucky didn't realize he'd been holding his hand over his far shoulder until he caught Sam's sympathetic expression meet his eyes. He pushed the feeling down and got to his feet, peeling off his socks as he did. He tried to look casual and unconcerned as he used his free hand to heft his duffle bag and suitcase onto his bed so he could grab his toiletries and some of his clothes, and then without a word, he went into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

He leaned against the door as he did, feeling those unresolved emotions he didn't have use for prying their way back up in him. He didn't have time for this and did everything he could to just focus on the routine and the checklist. Toothbrush. Toothpaste. Brush your teeth. He caught his reflection in the steamed-up mirror and decided he didn't want to look too closely. The person looking back at him looked ragged and almost unrecognizable, and reeked of that very particular primal musk that, in his experience, was a tell-tale sign of anxiety and stress. He decided he didn't need a mirror to brush his teeth so he turned and faced the wall.

He felt like he was doing a pretty good job being stable and such until it came time for the shower.

It was awkward to bathe himself with only one arm, but it wasn't like he hadn't had nearly two years with experience doing just that. So it wasn't about the arm. But it also was about the arm. It was about everything it represented and the fact he'd been too dense to get it, without needing Ayo and Shuri to spell it out for him.

It was that he was standing there, naked in the shower with water pouring over him and yet no matter how hot he turned the water, he didn't feel clean. As he stood there with the steam making his vision blurry, he forced his head back under the stream. Part of him almost wished the water would scald him, because the hurt inside was almost suffocating, and he didn't know how he could possibly find a way out of it.

And then slowly, slowly, he lowered himself to the tile floor and just let everything out.

He'd thought he had nothing left in him, but apparently, for not the first time, he was wrong. All those emotions just came flooding back and they snarled into him and pulled him under, back into the fog. Without a conscious thought, he wrapped his arm around himself and just sat there in a fetal position, letting his trembling fingers crest over the attachment points where the arm used to be.

A sudden knock at the door pulled his attention away from his broken body.

"Everything okay?"

Sam.

Bucky took a breath and tried to steady his nerves and project his voice in an attempt to make it sound something like normal, "Yeah." he lied, "Almost done."

"Okay. I'll be out here if you need anything."

He wasn't sure how much longer he spent wallowing on the floor of the shower before he finally struggled his way back to his shaky feet. He stood there until he gathered his nerves and enough focus to turn off the water, and then he carefully opened the shower door and stepped out.

He tried to just separate himself from last night and think back to how he had to navigate life here when he'd only had one arm. He focused on that and slung the towel over one shoulder and wrapped his hand around to hold both ends as he dried off. Next came deodorant, then his boxers and pants. Those weren't too bad. It was like his mind still remembered all the little tricks he'd picked-up along the way, and there was something comforting in the rote familiarity. It allowed him to just focus on what he needed to do next, not how he was feeling.

By the time he'd stepped out of the bathroom, he felt like he'd managed to get his head suitably under control, and he tried to feign what he hoped was a casual smile.

Sam had already gotten dressed, and he picked up on the lack of sincerity in that smile immediately. Initially, he didn't say much of anything as Bucky stepped out and made quick tracks to dig up a shirt from his duffle bag, which someone had conveniently saw fit to unzip for him. He dodged Sam's expression expertly, or at least he thought he did.

"You know," Sam observed from somewhere behind him, "I'm sure we could ping Banner and see if he could help with another prosthetic. It won't be vibranium, but it's not like we don't have the tech."

It was well-meaning, and Sam was clearly doing what he could to problem-solve, but the idea fell flat on Bucky without a second thought, "I mean, yeah, I guess I could, but this isn't about that. Not really."

Bucky made the mistake of catching Sam's eyes as he turned in preparation of trying to put on a loose grey shirt he felt did the best job of obscuring the socket where the missing arm was supposed to be. But that moment, it was like Sam also caught sight of someone else. He saw a vulnerable amputee who was laid bare, and he saw Sam flinch reflexively at the sight, as if he was trying to figure out what to say with this much truth on full-display.

"Look, I'm sure it looks worse than it is. But I'm okay. Really. This is nothing I haven't dealt with before. I've only had the arm back for what? Five months or something if we aren't counting blipped time."

"Whoa whoa," Sam interrupted, "Months? That math doesn't follow."

"I didn't even have the arm when I was here," Bucky stated as if it was obvious.

Apparently it wasn't.

"Hold up, wait," Sam put a hand up, "Wait. You lost me. I distinctly remember you having that chrome arm when we were back at the airport in Germany. I assumed the Wakandans just… gave you an upgrade."

Bucky grimaced, "Not to speak ill of the dead, but that arm… kinda fell out of warranty on account of Tony."

Realization. "Oh." A pause, "Oh."

They'd discussed the significance of the date Zemo'd been digging for information about after he'd said the goddamn words. Sam heard the same as Steve when Bucky'd been pinned down courtesy of a hydraulic press back at that old warehouse they'd dragged his unconscious, murderous ass to in order to interrogate him. Sam knew how it related to Tony, specifically.

"Yeah. Anyway. In the past. I get it. But when Steve dropped me off here it was just… easier for us to work on what we needed to without one." He made a face, reflecting, "It's hard to describe, but it was more his arm than mine anyway. It always felt like he was more left handed, or at least borderline ambidextrous." He offered Sam an honest expression, "But basically yeah: the whole time I was here, things were like this," he made a gesture with his hand, as if implying how he was now. "After a certain point, that was just the norm, and less of a big deal than you'd think. Safer, too, when we were working out the programming."

Sam shook his head, taking everything in, "None of that had even crossed my mind," he admitted before curiosity got the better of him, "So when did you get the other one?"

Bucky found himself reflexively cringing at the memory, "Right before the Battle of Wakanda. It felt like some sort of a consolation prize, since we all knew my training here wasn't complete, but with Thanos bearing down on us to try to get the last Infinity Stone, it made sense to let me do what I do best, I guess. Then the Decimation happened, we get a round two, and somewhere after that, I headed back to Brooklyn and stopped returning their calls. I'm not proud of that last part, by the way," he clarified pointedly before he worked to slip into his t-shirt starting with the hole for his head.

"Training?" Sam asked, but Bucky waved a hand to dismiss the inquiry once he'd managed to get the shirt on.

"Some other time. Not now, okay?" He was a master of deflection.

Sam acknowledged the request, and Bucky could practically see him shuffle the question away for the future.

Bucky felt the absence of something on his wrist and turned to regard the watch he'd slung onto the bed the night before with some degree of trepidation. The buckles on that were very much not one-hand-friendly. Then he found his eyes drawn back to his duffle and he set his jaw as he debated the Kimoyo Beads tucked away within.

While there was no obvious reason to try to read-in so much sentimentality between the two, as he stood there, he felt like his choice, whatever it was, said a lot more about him beyond his (clearly lacking) sense of fashion. He huffed out a breath and tried to step into that empathy place he'd been so painfully lax in and just try to see it from the Wakandan perspective.

If he wore the watch: they probably wouldn't care. It'd been what he'd been wearing when he came in, besides.

But if he wore the Kimoyo Beads, though, it said something. He couldn't be certain what it said after what had gone down the night before, but he hoped maybe the gesture would be better than his words. Words only went so far with the Wakandans: actions mattered far more.

Sam's sage words ran through his head, "Now you've gotta ask yourself who you want to be. Do you want to be the person that prefers a clean start? To walk away because seeing what they're feeling hurts too much and feels like they're holding up a mirror to something you don't like, or do you feel like you're the sort of person that can stomach some tough love because you see those other people out there as being worth your time, because somewhere deep down, you actually do want them in your life, despite them seeing some of the shadows along the way?"

He felt the shift in him as a new wave of resolve firmly settled into place: He was tired of walking away and hiding from his problems. That wasn't the person he wanted to be. He might not have a damn clue what he could do to make things better between them, or if he even could, but he wasn't going to throw in the towel just because the Wakandans had chosen to be straightforward with him. They mattered to him, and they'd collectively gone through too much together for him to feign that none of this made a difference to him, of all people.

And so Bucky stepped forward and dug into his duffle bag with one hand and pulled out the Kimoyo Beads. He regarded the strand of polished, rune-etched orbs in his hand with new eyes before using his thumb to snap the strand open. He settled his wrist over it, and a few seconds later, it snapped closed around his wrist again, settling back into place like nothing had happened. He made a gesture with his hand and the beads responded, remembering the one-handed protocols Shuri had programmed into them. Bucky focused as he worked the gestures with muscle-memory.

"Okay, I let them know we're up and are gonna go get breakfast," he offered Sam, adding, "And I turned on the comms and tracker so they can find us whenever they're free."

Bucky'd been so deep in his own head that he realized he hadn't even chanced to glance up at Sam recently. When he did, he found the man with his arms crossed proudly over his chest, damn near grinning at him without a lick of shame.

"Good plan," Sam offered as he stepped forward to tap Bucky on his good shoulder and headed out into the fray.

Author's Remarks:

I hope all of you are doing well and are enjoying the story so far! It felt good to finally wrap back around to the significance of the Kimoyo Beads, and to start to resolve what Bucky wants rather than simply dodging away from uncomfortable truths. I hope you can feel the momentum building, though!

As an artist myself, I thought it was cool to see Steve doing sketches way back in Captain America: The First Avenger, and while we didn't see him do much of that in the years after, you can actually see that exact monkey sketch he did in the background of his deck in Captain America: Civil War! I didn't realize until I looked it up that it's canon that Steve went to art school.

I suppose that I assume because of how his life evolved, he mostly stilled that hobby, but I really like the idea that he and Bucky used to dip their toes into local libraries and museums as a way to escape and learn more about the wider world around them.

Speaking of Civil War: my head-canon presumes that when Steve asked Bucky about what Zemo's asked, offscreen, he also told him about the importance of the date, and how it related to the Winter Soldier being tasked to get the serum and leave no witnesses (Howard and Maria Stark).

Beyond that: Thank you all so much for sharing your continued thoughts and support. It means so very much to me, and I hope you're as excited as I am about the journey ahead.

In the meantime, I realized I'm not sure that if you're interested in following any of my art and such outside of here, I can be found at a few different places online, including:

Twitter: KLeCrone (Other sites on pinned post)

Written to a heavy amount of silence as well as "No Sanctuary," by UNSECRET, feat. Sam Tinnesz and Fleurie. (I've had this song on repeat for days. It's become this almost ballad to how I imagine Bucky right about now as he's trying to sort out some of the missteps he's made along the way and find a way to move forward. The drum sections have a great "Wakandan" vibe to me as well. It makes me want to make some fan art SO BADLY, but perhaps one of these days...)

"No Sanctuary," by UNSECRET, feat. Sam Tinnesz and Fleurie:

"Walking through the heart of the fire
It's hard to keep moving forward
Living with my life on a wire again
Nothing in this world makes sense
And few things left feel holy
Lying in valleys with the dead

Everything's barely holding on

No sanctuary
There's no place to hide
No sanctuary
I'm lost in the fight
I can feel my soul turning with the clouds
Twisting up my bones in the breakdown
No sanctuary
There's no place
No place to hide

Nothing but a memory now
All the days that we felt alive
Haunting smiles in picture frames on walls
I try but I just can't quit
Reaching for the past, cold embers
Only for a moment to recall

'Cause everything's barely holding on
[...]"