Authors Note: This story takes place as Bucky is recovering in Wakanda. I like to try to stay within canon and I could not find any explicit explanation of what Shuri did to him beyond a vague 'removal of programing' so I took some liberties. I've never been a fan of the magic bullet so my quick fix ain't so quick. If someone has a canon resource out there that contradicts my version of events...well, sorry XD I try to be my best.
This story is special to me for a few different reasons. I once spent a portion of my life living in Kenya, many many years ago. I fell in love with that people and culture and I have admittedly drawn more Kenya into Wakanda than was probably meant to be there. But I hope, by some secondhand experience, that you get to hear and taste and feel the same culture that I got to enjoy.
I also work now with deeply traumatized peoples and so this story has also been a way for me to process some of the emotions and moments that I've had to walk through this past year. I am by no means a psychologist but I have tried to be true to the nature of PTSD and chronic trauma. Which leads me to this...
TRIGGER WARNING: Intense moments of trauma lay waiting in these paragraphs. These moments may be triggering and difficult to read. If you wish to avoid this content, it's best that you move on to a different story - no hard feelings.
Where to Find The Soundtrack: I'm a music mongrel. If you'd like to hear the soundtrack to this fic, search for 'The Rehumanization of James Buchanan Barnes' playlist on Spotify. Drop me a PM or comment if you enjoy the tunes!
Posting Rate: Most of the story is already in the first draft, and moving swiftly. I hope to have it all buttoned up in a week or two and will do my best to post regularly. This sucker's got a solid landing, I promise. But you know those reviews move it along faster ;)
With love, and sympathy, and no further ado,
The ReHumanization of James Buchanan Barnes
Ayo knew from the beginning that this was going to be a very bad idea. Waking up an unstable super weapon was as good an idea as getting into bed with a rabies infested dog. It did not matter how beloved the pet was, he was going to bite someone.
She'd tried explaining this to both Princess Shuri and King T'Challa but neither sibling had heeded her warning and so they were here: in a wide, bright operating theater in the Wakanda Medical Center, focusing in on the cryostasis chamber that housed the Winter Soldier.
T'Challa stood on the observation platform beside the warrior, resting easily against the railing, some ten feet above the activity below. "You doubt this will be successful," he noted.
"I doubt it will be safe," Ayo corrected.
"It's not going to be a problem," Shuri insisted as she breezed past them, rolling her eyes as she trotted down the stairs to the main floor.
"When it remains not-a-problem, then you can roll your eyes," Ayo said flatly.
Shuri cast her a look but shook her head as she got back to the work before her. The cryostasis chamber was horizontal, so that the man inside was prone. The thawing process had already begun.
"I thought we were going to be able to deactivate the Winter Soldier before you unfroze him," Ayo complained down to Shuri.
"The words are like fleas," the princess explained as she went, grinning wildly as she held up the device that her team had invented for the process – a thin Vibranium halo. "And I can't find them when everything is frozen because they are frozen too. I need the dog to scratch the fleas before I can find where they are. We won't wake him all the way, just enough for him to hear the words. Then we can deprogram his neural pathways with a genius algorithm that I wrote which would make Tony Stark weep tears of shame that he did not think of it first."
Ayo waved off any more gloating. They would wake him up to see where it hurt. It was dangerous.
Her lips pressed into a firm line.
"Releasing the lid," someone said. It slid open with a hiss and cold air fogged out as it met the room temperature.
A heart monitor began to bleep, slowly. The readouts spat out numbers – body temperature, oxygen levels. A nurse inserted an IV line into the man's hand, taping it in place.
Shuri stepped forward and placed the halo gently in the space just above Barnes' head. It hovered there, a few inches above him, spinning slowly, casting off a vivid blue light.
"The data looks good. We have brain activity. Recording now," someone said.
"Everyone be quiet, please. We're ready. Begin the words," Shuri ordered.
One of the men in lab coats stepped forward with a paper. Ayo tightened her grip on her spear.
"желаниe."
A pause.
Shuri began typing furiously at her tablet. She gestured for the man to continue.
"pжавый, Семнадцать…"
"I'm getting nothing. Does someone else speak better Russian? Yes? Pass it along. Let's start again."
The paper changed hands and a new speaker came forward.
"Желание, Ржавый…"
"Ease off the sedative a little. Start again."
"Желание, Ржавый, Семнадцать…"
"There it is. I see the activity." Shuri flicked her fingers and a new image jumped to the large screens around the operating theater, showing three red dots clustering in a part of his brain. She smiled. "Pause here, let's see if we can target one of these words."
Ayo looked to the soldier. His eyes were flicking back and forth, under his eyelids. Slowly, his face drew into an expression of anguish.
"He's aware," she warned.
"No, he's asleep," Shuri insisted. "Maybe dreaming but still asleep."
The brain image zoomed in closer on one of the dots and showed not a dot but a web of red, weaving through neurons. The halo began to spin faster, the blue light growing brighter. The red pulsed, the webs started to shrink back – slowly, slowly.
"It's working!" Shuri announced. They were all staring up at the screens, all eyes fixed there to witness the feat.
All eyes were fixed, except for Ayos.
Barnes twitched. His eyelids dragged open around rolling eyes. Closed again. Flickered. He flinched. A trembling arm fumbled up, barely cresting the side of stasis chamber which is when she saw it:
The IV was dangling from his hand by a strip of tape, clear fluid dripping from a bare needle, onto the floor.
The cold was intimately familiar, shifting deep inside him. But already it was pulling away, yielding to reality, and a deep abiding dread. There was a pattern to this and its familiarity brought some stability. There was intense cold and then would come the intense heat directly to his mind, targeting the roots of his identity like a stubborn garden weed. And then the shackles came for his morality.
This was what he knew as truth as he lifted from the frozen slumber.
And that was when it began to go wrong.
The cold did not shift all the way. It lingered. It seized his lungs. No one was lifting him out of it. He was laying down, and stuck there.
Something's wrong.
There was light beyond his eyelids, bright white and then intense blue. Wrong.
He couldn't wake up.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't lift his head or move his legs. He couldn't…but if he tried mightily, maybe. A primal might. A deep gut strength that needled him. Move move move!
He flexed his hand. His…Where was his other hand? He couldn't feel it! His shoulder flexed against nothing!
Ice pooled in his chest. His scalp was buzzing and his fingers and feet tingled.
Move!
He lifted his hand a few inches. Pushed it. Pressed it to a wall that was not his stasis chamber. It was not his home. Burning lit along his skin there and he pushed it again. And again. And again until the pain pulled free.
His lips were shaking and he worked to draw a noise from his chest but nothing came. He couldn't open his eyes. He couldn't breathe.
Желаниe.
No. No no no…
A fresh wave of urgency crashed through his veins. He dragged at his eyelids again as panic settled in deep.
Move, move, move!
Желание, Ржавый, Семнадцать.
Not like this. It couldn't happen like this. He was still aware. His identity was growing back. He couldn't be shackled like this. Not like this.
Please…
He pulled at his strength again. It was there, he knew it was there. He just had to break the spell of paralysis.
Pain knifed through his head. He jerked, tried to scream, but he couldn't scream. He couldn't catch his breath.
Flashes lit up behind his eyes and sensation danced through his nerves, but this was not the pain he knew. This was a fresh hell.
MOVE!
Ayo was in motion as soon as Barnes launched himself upwards. He came bursting out of the stasis chamber like a man possessed. The Winter Soldier snatched at the first body he could see and had a nurse by the neck, flinging her away from him as he shoved free of the strap around his chest.
Ayo sent her spear flying, even as she launched over the railing to sprint towards him. Whether by dumb luck or insane speed, he ducked down into the chamber and the blade bit deep into the metal casing, sending out a billow of super cold vapor. Then he was rolling out the opposite side and running.
T'Challa blindsided him, tackling the Winter Soldier to the floor. The soldier started to shriek. He flailed like a wild man, hammering at the king with his bare fist and feet, clawing for an escape.
"NO!" he bellowed. "No no no no no, stop! STOP!"
The king managed to pull him into a submission hold and bore down, trying to contain the soldier. It was like wrestling a rhino.
"You are safe, Sergeant Barnes," T'Challa was shouting back. "You are in Wakanda!"
The two supermen struggled against each other, matching strength for strength.
Ayo had wrenched her weapon free and was poised to use it but T'Challa caught her eye and gave his head a firm shake. She held it ready anyway. And then she saw the fear in the Winter Soldier's eyes – animalistic, and overwhelming.
"Nooooo!" Barnes screamed again. He wasn't quieting down. He wasn't losing steam. The panic was ramping up and T'Challa was too kind to hit him.
Shuri must have come to the same conclusion because she was pressing something to Ayo's hand – a syringe. She did not hesitate. She dropped her spear and darted in close, jamming the needle into the most convenient piece of white flesh she could find.
Barnes let out an unearthly wail, almost yanking free of the king's grasp. But then a moment passed, and he started to sag. Still, he fought back the effects. Desperation etched his features and he sobbed again for them to stop.
Then, finally, the drugs took a hold of him and he went limp in T'Challa's arms.
Ayo shoved away from the floor. "The next time I call for better security measures, I expect to be heard," she spat angrily.
No one argued with her this time.
"Can we put him back under?" T'Challa asked as he sat up, wincing. He gingerly assembled the Winter Soldier into a recovery position.
Ayo looked over at the stasis chamber, also wincing. It was ruined.
"No," Shuri answered, though they new the answer already.
"Secure him in an observation room," T'Challa ordered. "We need another plan..."
The Winter Soldier did not come roaring back to consciousness the second time. They were careful. They put him in a room by himself and let him wake up fully before sending T'Challa in to speak to him. Slowly, it was decided. They would have to move slowly and gently if they wanted to maintain both safety and dignity. The second part was important to T'Challa. He felt compassion for this soldier, especially after he'd already tried to kill him so many times. He deserved a little dignity.
The man sat in the furthest corner of a too bright room, legs drawn up protectively. He held his chest with his arm, his hand rubbing fitfully around the seam between metal and flesh. His face was blank.
T'Challa eased into the room and sat the floor with him, just out of striking range, his body language broadcasting peace, not aggression. Or so he hoped.
"Do you remember who you are?" T'Challa asked in a soft, easy tone.
Barnes stared at him, his eyes glassy. A beat, then, "32557038," he rattled. Paused. "James Buchanan Barnes."
T'Challa nodded. "Sergeant Barnes, do you know where you are?"
Another beat, a frown, and then he shook his head. That was a bad sign. He hoped they hadn't done more damage to him in the attempt to deprogram.
"What is the last thing you remember?" the king pressed.
Barnes eyes flicked off to the side as he thought about it. He was quiet for a long moment and T'Challa held the silence for him.
"I remember Steve," Bucky finally said. "In Romania. They thought I killed someone…" He paused, his body stiffening. Eyes flicked back to T'Challa. "I didn't..."
T'Challa raised his hands and dipped his head. "You didn't kill him. And I am sorry that I allowed vengeance to cloud my judgement."
Bucky's brow furrowed. "Steve brought me here? You put me in stasis?"
"Yes, we are helping you to recover. You suggested—"
"Put me back," he snapped quickly, panic flitting across his features. "Put me back under. I'm not safe."
T'Challa let out a breath. "The cryostasis chamber was damaged. We will not put you in stasis again unless there is no other way. I think we will focus on deprogramming instead."
Bucky's jaw clenched and he looked down at the floor. "How fast can you deprogram me?"
"The device my sister is using was also damaged. The repairs may take some time. They have asked for a week to prepare again," T'Challa explained.
The man's breathing picked up. He squeezed himself tighter, fingers scrubbing furiously now at his side. "Make sure I don't have enough room to move," he said tightly. "Vibranium restraints this time. Triple the sedation—"
"That won't be necessary."
"Did I hurt anyone?" His eyes were wide and frantic.
T'Challa only hesitated for a moment but it was long enough.
"Did I kill anyone?" Barnes pressed, his voice cracking around the question.
"No, you did not kill anyone," T'Challa answered swiftly this time. "She will recover."
Bucky let out a noise, squeezing his eyes shut. His arm tightened around his middle, shaking.
"My friend," T'Challa started. "Do you have a pain in your side?"
Barnes froze. Blood had started to stain his white shirt. "There's…I can feel something poking out…"
"May I see?"
Bucky pulled the shirt up. The seam of his metal prosthesis, just where the skin began to cover over it, was red and bleeding where his armpit should have been. T'Challa could see the shallow drag marks of fingernails, bright red against pale skin.
"There is nothing there," he assured Barnes. "They removed the damaged pieces already."
"There's something…" He trailed off, clamping his mouth shut and letting the shirt drop back over the seeping scratches. He balled his hand into a fist and held it low across his belly. "You need to lock me up," Barnes ground out in a harsh whisper.
"You are not an animal and you are not a prisoner," T'Challa said kindly. "I'm not going to put you in a cage, my friend. We have come up with a better idea, I think. Be at peace. We will take of you and it will be alright."
Bucky looked up at him. There was desperation in that look. Fear.
"It will be alright," T'Challa repeated. "You are not alone, Sergeant Barnes."
TBC