Zhelaniye

Steve sat by Wanda’s side and waited for her to stop shaking.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a long, quiet while.

“No. I’m sorry.” Her eyes were still a bit wide, and she was moving her head in tiny repressed movements. “I should have been able to do more.”

“You’ve done a lot already.”

She curled in her shoulders. “You don’t need to coddle me.”

“I’m not,” Steve said with too much feeling. “He’s my family. I’m always going to have his back, and he knows that. You don’t have that kind of connection and you still… you wanted to comfort him.” He looked down. “It means something.”

She just looked at him.

Steve kept staring at his hands. “I wish you hadn’t had to see—”

“Steve.” Her smile looked as sorry as he felt. “I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.”

Steve said nothing. Sometimes he forgot everything she’d been through. She had so much grace he just forgot.

“It did show me a potential solution,” she said after a deep breath, “but you won’t like it.”

Steve almost laughed, because what else was new. He finally looked up. “What is it?”

“What I saw…” She hesitated. “It was a glowing forest of memories. I know there are forceful paths grooved into it but I cannot distinguish them; they’re lost in the multitude. If we were to use them—they would glow bright enough for me to see.”

Steve felt his insides go still.

“You need someone to activate his triggers while you’re in there.”

“I said you wouldn’t like it.” She looked away. “We don’t have to do this now. I can come back in January.”

“No,” Steve said, his heart rate going up at the thought of leaving the house in France unprotected twice in a row. He opened his mouth, hesitated. “He should… he should at least know. It’s his choice to make.” He lowered his voice. “And yours.”

Wanda glanced at him again. She was still pale, but her eyes burned bright.

“I’m not leaving him like this. Not if I can help it.”

*

For a second, Bucky did hesitate.

But then he ducked his head, like he had every time he’d been asked to do something. “Okay.”

“You can take another minute to think,” Steve hurried to say.

“I said okay,” Bucky repeated quietly.

“I cannot let you do this," said another voice.

Everyone turned to Hsari. The look in her eyes wasn’t hostile as expected, but her lips were still pressed into a thin line.

“Not without his Highness’ agreement,” she went on. “If we are to activate the Winter Soldier, he should be warned.”

“Of course,” Bucky said.

She inclined her head, then left the room. Steve was awfully relieved for this reprieve. He couldn’t help feeling like Bucky was simply resigning himself to this. He’d had this feeling since the very start.

He wished Bucky would have met his eyes, to see what he’d read there. But Bucky wasn’t looking at him; he hadn’t looked at him since Steve had shown him the picture of his room in France, empty and waiting.

*

Hsari came back after a minute. “Captain Rogers. His Highness wants to speak to you.”

Steve looked at Wanda, then at Bucky, who was still keeping his eyes down. He nodded, then followed her in the hallway.

T’Challa was waiting by the windows overlooking the jungle.

“You disapprove,” Steve said.

Some part of him desperately wished T’Challa would forbid it entirely.

T’Challa took a silent breath. “No. Ms. Maximoff’s plan makes sense.” He looked at Steve. “But it is a powerful weapon we’re activating. And power is always tempting.”

Steve knew what he was getting at. “It’s alright,” he said wanly. “I’ll be the one to say the words.”

Of course it would be him. Who else? In Siberia, Tony had said, Stay down. Final warning. Steve would have liked to stay down—and even more so now. He was hurt and tired. He wanted to stop fighting. The crux of the matter was that he couldn’t. If you start running they’ll never let you stop. Nobody had ever truly understood that, except for Bucky.

T’Challa dark eyes were boring into his. “I do trust you,” he said in a slow voice. “Even more so when it comes to him.”

He raised a hand to his collar and popped open the first button of his shirt. Underneath lay the thin dark layer of his ancestral suit, vibranium chainmail lighter and colder than silk.

“I do not, however, trust HYDRA’s programming. I shall be present as a weapon myself.”

It meant he would hear the words. But for all Steve knew, T’Challa had learned them by heart already. The notebook was in his custody. Just like Bucky himself. Steve had no choice but to trust him. Though he couldn’t be certain, he thought he’d probably made poorer decisions.

So he nodded. “I can live with that.”

T’Challa put a hand on his shoulder, just for a second.

Then he fastened the button of his shirt again, and turned away. “Let’s go. They must be waiting for us.”

*

For the first time since he’d come to Wakanda, Bucky agreed to sit in a chair. Wanda sat behind him, with her hands on each side of his head. T’Challa stood in a corner of the room, never looking away from Bucky, who had closed his eyes.

Steve sat in front of him and opened the notebook. The first word jumped out at him.

Zhelaniye.

There it was. The first step to turning James Buchanan Barnes into an empty slave, with no other compulsion than obedience to his master.

It was a very cruel way of answering Steve’s wishes. After he’d done this, he could just say, Come home. And Bucky would follow him home. Except for the fact that it wouldn’t be Bucky at all—and that Steve would sooner tear out his own tongue than use it in this way.

Yet he had to say the words now.

Steve had talked to a lot of intelligence professionals these past months. He knew how to condition someone. You had to break down their sense of self first. Bucky had been tortured, yes; but for the most part he’d been made to torture other people. It didn’t matter whom. Other prisoners of war. Homeless people snatched off the street. Orphaned children. Animals, maybe. He was at his captors’ mercy. They had other hostages ready for the slaughter if he refused to obey. What could he do but obey?

The retired KGB general, in particular, had told Steve this: The subjects do most of the work themselves. Past a certain threshold of horror and self-loathing they start wishing to be erased. The mind begins to turn itself inside out and wipe itself clean. Negating themselves is the only way for them to cope with what they’ve been made to do. It is their only option since they are not allowed to die.

Obey, obey, obey. Bucky had no choice. No matter what horrors he was made to do. He had no choice. This single lesson—taught again and again and again. Eventually this reality would have hardwired itself into his brain. And just like that, most of the work was done. Without the ability to question orders, he was a blank slate. Maybe it had been a relief, to give in.

Steve remembered how Bucky’s scans had looked when he’d been asked to think of Siberia. Almost all of his brain activity shutting down. Was that what Steve was about to do to him?

Did Bucky long for it?

Zhelaniye.

Steve had to say it. He had to do what Bucky wanted. He owed him this much. For seventy years, Steve had slept in the Arctic while Bucky’s mind was pried out and his thoughts overwritten in blood. Even now—with their roles technically reversed—Steve was still the one who had it easy. All Bucky could scrape up was a meagre ersatz of peace; and yet Steve wouldn’t even let him have it. Steve demanded that Bucky come out and entertain him every three months. Was Steve at least getting tortured in the meantime? No. Steve got to live with his friends in a big goldenstone house by the river Dordogne.

“Zhel—” His hands were shaking; the words were blurring before his eyes. He blinked the tears out and swallowed thickly around a raspy throat. “Zhela—”

“Stop. Jesus. Stop.” Bucky got up from the chair, almost stumbled. “Steve, I’m sorry, you don’t have to—how could I ask you to—”

He ripped out the notebook from Steve’s hands—and Steve lunged against him trying to get it back.

“No,” he said, reaching, “no, wait, I can do this, I’m sorry, I was getting there—”

“Steve, stop,” Bucky panted—when had he grabbed Steve like this?—why was he pushing back against him?—“Steve, stop, stop!”—but Steve couldn’t stop—he had to get the notebook back—he shouldn’t have let go of it—Bucky’s safety depended on it—

“T’Challa,” Bucky said, and another solid grip came to restrain Steve, blocking his arms against his sides.

“No, I can do this,” Steve said, still trying to break free. “I can do this—”

“Steve,” Bucky pleaded. “Steve, I’m so fucking sorry, just listen to me, you don’t have to do it, I should’ve never asked you to do it, I just went mad for a second, I didn’t think of how much it would hurt you—”

And that was when Steve stopped struggling.

It was like his entire body had powered down. Suddenly everything was very quiet in his head; he felt limp and heavy, like he might never move again. All he could do was sag against Bucky. So this was what it felt like. To have all the fight gone out of him. It was a strange, unpleasant feeling. But he'd been right. It was a relief, too.

“Steve?” Bucky asked shakily. He sounded incredibly worried. “Steve?”

“I’m sorry,” Steve murmured. Hot tears rolled down his face, seeping into the cloth of Bucky’s shirt. “I’ve been so goddamn selfish.”

Bucky sounded completely lost. “What?”

“All those tests. All those scans. You were even gonna let me say the words.” Steve let out a small, wet scoff. “Today’s the only time you asked for it to stop. And that’s because you thought it might hurt me.”

Stay down. Final warning.

“It’s okay, Buck. You don’t have to do this anymore. I’m sorry it took me so long.” He pushed the words out like a nausea. “I’ll let you rest. For good this time. I can be alone. I’ll learn how.”

Bucky let out an animal noise.

“Jesus. Jesus Christ. Get out.” He was physically pushing Steve away. “Get him—get him out of here.”

Steve blinked in slow, helpless confusion. No, this wasn’t—he’d thought he was finally saying the right thing. Where had he gone wrong?

“Bucky—wait,” he called, but he supposed he was being taken away indeed because the world receded into a numb distance, until he wasn’t really anywhere anymore.