Chapter 2
Stainless steel bench tops and various electrical instruments in Shuri’s lab seem to unlock a door of memories he’d rather keep shut. Bucky stiffens as he takes in the scene, and he feels a tingle down his spine.
His own scream echoes in his mind, along with a masked nurse with some type of… taser, he thinks. He remembers pain.
“James, welcome,” Shuri says, her accent and light voice bringing him back to the present.
He takes a moment to answer, fighting the floodgate. “Just— one second,” he manages, and backs out the door. After it’s closed and he’s alone in the hallway again, he shuts his eyes tight.
In his mind, a scalpel flashes in the dim light, and he remembers even more pain, but this time, it’s different. He rolls up his pant leg, staring in shock at the massive, ragged graft mark, about the side of his palm, on the outside of his left shin. He’d been burned, badly, he remembers vaguely.
It’s a strange feeling, to have pieces of his life return in unpredictable patches, as if he’s half re-living them and half watching them from the outside.
It’s too much. His chest heaves, and he sits down in the hallway, leaning against the wall. He knows he only has a minute or two before Shuri comes looking for him.
He swallows thickly, trying to get his thoughts out of that dark, sterile laboratory he knew all too well. He focuses on the pattern of the wall in front of him, in this beautiful city in this beautiful building. It’s indigenous art, he recognizes, from his time going to art museums in Bucharest. His eyes trace the sharp lines and dots in the pattern, and he slowly shakes off the sick feeling in his stomach. He stands, slowly, and braces himself for the lab again.
He knows Shuri can tell, but she doesn’t ask any questions. He appreciates her calm acceptance. She explains what she’s screening for, and which tests he’ll have to do.
So he sits down on the medical chair, leaning back against the cushion and trying like hell not to picture that cold metal one in Germany that was a source of so much pain in his past life.
—
Steve bites his lip, watching from the hallway as Bucky sits on the couch, staring blankly at the abstract art on the wall.
They’re staying in an apartment for a month or two while Shuri tries to find a reversal. T’Challa has given her more time, to Steve’s relief, so they’ve been granted visas to the country in the meantime while Steve works out his plan with the UN.
“Quit staring,” Bucky mutters.
He’s hardly said a word since coming back from the lab, and he seems on edge, and Steve is determined to figure out why.
“How was today?” Steve asks gingerly.
Bucky doesn’t answer right away, which Steve takes as an answer in itself.
“It was fine,” he says finally. “Just long.”
Clearly, he doesn’t want to talk. And Steve knows better than to push it, so he just nods and steps towards the kitchen.
He fills himself a glass of water and asks Bucky if he wants one.
“No, thanks.”
“Want anything to eat?”
“No, thanks.”
Frustration swirls in Steve’s stomach. “Jesus, Bucky, I’d think you were mute if I didn’t know better.”
“You clearly don’t know what mute means.”
“Well, you’re being awfully short with me. What happened at the lab?”
Bucky sighs and twists around. His eyes look tired. “Nothing. Quit bugging me about it.”
Steve rolls his eyes, and puts a bowl of leftovers in the microwave.
“If it were nothing, you’d tell me what you did,” Steve mutters, quietly, but enough so Bucky could hear.
But then Bucky stiffens again, and Steve hears a sharp inhale, and he looks over, narrowing his eyes.
“Buck?”
But Bucky stares blankly at the arm of the couch, still turned sideways a bit, back rigid and face twisted in focus. His metal fingertips grip the back of the couch until the leather dents inwards.
Steve watches as his chest rises and falls quicker and deeper until he steps in.
“Bucky, what’s happening?” he asks sharply, moving forward and waving a hand in front of him. For a moment, Steve’s nervous, not irrationally, that Bucky could’ve turned into the soldier. He tenses, readying himself for a fight.
But then Bucky blinks, and lets go of the couch frame, and looks up at Steve.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks, relieved.
But his ice blue eyes look dull, and Steve can sense his exhaustion.
“I don’t like laboratories,” Bucky mutters, and pushes himself off the couch.
“Well, maybe if you just told me what—“
“Steve, leave it,” Bucky warns in a tone that tells him not to overstep. And then he disappears into his room, door shut behind him, and Steve’s left in the hallway biting his tongue.
—
Bucky sits on the edge of his bed. He breathes slowly, counting the wood panels beneath his feet and tracing the marbling and colors until he feels calmer. He swallows, images swirling behind his eyes of the legs of a metal bench top as he stares down at the floor. He remembers being strapped down to it, and he instinctively twists his wrists around, reminding himself he’s not bound right now. It’s a tough mental hurtle to clear.
His stomach turns as he remembers the searing pain. He tries to locate it— his back. They must have been testing metals, burning them into his skin to find a good one for the arm. This one was an early memory; it must’ve still been the 50’s.
He scrambles to his mirror, turning around and lifting his t-shirt up. His back is covered in scars, some of which he remembers and some he doesn’t, and finds a few bright lines towards his right shoulder blade. Those were the metal burns, the tests they ran to see which metal his skin healed around the best.
He bites his cheek and drops the shirt.
It makes him uncomfortable to acknowledge how much of those lost years he doesn’t remember. He knows patches and timelines, like when he was transferred to Russia or when certain missions took place, but specific events are hard to pinpoint. They’re especially difficult when they happened right before his mind was wiped clean, like the memories didn’t have much time to form.
And Steve. Bucky could hear his worry and concern, but he can’t bring himself to tell him the full truth. It would hurt him more than Bucky cares to find out.
And every time Steve asks, it just brings forth the exact memories he’s trying to avoid.
—
“That thing’s gonna fucking zap me,” Bucky mutters, head pressed all the way against the headrest. “Shuri—“
“James, it’s okay,” she says. “It’s safe.”
He tries to breathe slowly. But the two contraptions on either side of his face feel like they’re inching closer, and he grips the armrests tightly.
His face tingles with the anticipation of an electric shock, and it makes him feel sick.
In one swift movement he pushes both of the machines back and stands, wringing out his hands and stepping backwards warily.
“James, I promise, it’s safe.” Shuri’s voice is familiar and confident.
But anxiety clouds his thoughts, visions of dark metal rooms swirling behind his eyes.
“How can I trust you?” He spits, lost in the past.
“Because I’ve done nothing to harm you,” she says calmly. “I can reverse the serum. You’ll be free again.”
Free. The word sends hope flooding his veins. He can’t remember the last time he was truly free.
He swallows, leaning forward with his hands resting against the back of the chair, pulling himself together.
He stares at Shuri and watches the way she calmly moves the machines back in place, unbothered by his outburst, and he’s hit with regret. He doesn’t deserve her.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he means it.
“It’s alright,” she answers, but looks up at him expectantly.
“I just… this makes me nervous. The chair, the machines.”
“Why?”
He bites his cheek. “It feels like the one they used at HYDRA.”
“The chair does?”
“This one is much nicer, I swear,” Bucky stutters, hoping she doesn’t take offense to it.
But she just grins. “Thanks.”
But now Bucky’s lost in thought, in trying to remember what that cold, metal one looked like. His heart pounds a little harder.
“What’s on your mind?” She asks.
“I have scars here,” he says flatly, pointing to his temples as his eyes stay fixed on the white chair in front of him. “Right here. You see them?”
“Yes, James, I see them.”
“Electrocution,” he says, meeting her eyes. “Five electrodes per side. Three thousand volts — it should’ve killed me.”
He feels her eyes scraping over him, watching him for something he doesn’t understand.
“But instead it… reset you.”
A lump forms in his throat. “Hundreds of times over.”
Shuri nods, but her eyes are sympathetic. She understands what he’s saying, and accepts his trauma with no expectations, and doesn’t ask for more. He’s thankful for that.
“Then I’ll explain to you what this is doing,” she says decisively. “And it has no electrodes.”
The rest of the day is similar, running more tests, but this time Shuri makes sure to explain each and every tool she uses. Bucky’s grateful for her understanding and patience with him.
But it’s still draining, having to face the new memories and trying to block out the ones he doesn’t have the energy to confront.
So when he gets back to his and Steve’s apartment, all he wants to do is sit and relax.
—
“Buck? You awake?” Steve calls, knocking lightly on his bedroom door. It’s seven-thirty at night.
“One second,” he hears a mumble.
After a minute, Bucky opens the door, and Steve almost laughs at his state. His hair is messy, his face has an imprint of his pillow, and his eyes are half-open.
He cracks a half smile. “You look great.”
“Thanks,” he grumbles.
“Let’s get dinner.”
—
For the first time, life feels normal. They’re sitting in a restaurant in downtown, and the lights and chatter and bustle of a city street at night makes Bucky feel like a civilian again.
They sat Steve and Bucky at a small table outside on the patio, and he’s pretty sure the waitress thinks they’re a gay couple. He doesn’t mind much.
But they laugh about that, and they spend the dinner cracking jokes and reminiscing. Bucky feels like he’s truly seeing Steve in a new light— not just for who he was in 1945, but for the person he’s grown into and how he’s changed for the better since. At the root, they share the connection of Brooklyn and the army and their past lives, but the courses of their lives add layers that they know will take time to uncover. But it’s not difficult, Bucky thinks, it feels more like excitement. Because, so far, he likes this Steve.
—
By midnight, they’re both pretty drunk. They bar crawl across downtown, and Steve can’t help himself but to stare at Bucky like he’s some sort of painting… or piece in a museum. Where they both probably should be, he thinks ironically.
Because it almost doesn’t feel real. It almost felt like a fever dream, like he hallucinated the past month and running from the government and discovering what be once thought he’d never find again. But when he looks in Bucky’s eyes, or watches the way his hair falls across his face, or the corners of his mouth when he smiles, reality comes rushing back in. Because he knows those eyes and that smile— he would recognize them in every lifetime.
Bucky stumbles over the curb, laughing about something or other, and Steve can’t help but to watch with an awestruck smile as he turns around to grin at him.
That’s a scene Steve will carry with him forever, he thinks. Because in this moment, all he feels is hope.
“This one,” Bucky says, spinning around and pointing up at the neon bar sign. It’s a tiki bar.
Get this, Steve thinks with a laugh, a Tiki bar in a hidden country in Africa.
“Looks good to me,” Steve says with a grin, and he knows his words slur together.
Except, the thing about them and the Tiki bar in a hidden country in Africa is that they don’t blend in. Especially in a country that doesn’t often mix with the western world.
But Steve and Bucky are quick language learners— occupational hazard, he supposes— so they’ve picked up the basics of Wakandan and can speak with the common people pretty well. But they know their skin tones stand out, and they have to be careful and consistent with their made-up backstory. It gets more difficult the more beers they drink.
Until, eventually, Steve’s aware of wary eyes on their backs, and even in his state he can tell that they were pushing their luck of staying undercover. Going incognito as white men in an African country can only be kept up for so long before someone figures out that one of these white men is the winter Soldier.
But when Steve turns back to his right, to Bucky’s bar stool, it’s empty.
Anxiety shoots up in his chest, and he quickly scans the bar. Nothing.
The colorful flowers and spotlight decorations that watch over this Tiki bar from the ceiling are suddenly suffocating, and Steve gets up quickly, making a sweep of the place. He knows people are staring, and all he wants now is to find Bucky and go home.
Wakandans are friendly. But at the end of the day, people are people, and he can’t trust them all, especially when all it takes is a string of eleven Russian words to turn his friend into a brainwashed assassin.
—
Even the bathroom is a blinding explosion of color, Bucky thinks numbly, leaning heavily against the countertop. He’s exhausted, suddenly, like the night of bar hopping has finally caught up to him.
He hasn’t been this drunk in decades, he thinks. It’s a strange thought to have, but right now he can’t block his thoughts out as easily.
The feeling of being drunk was good at first. It was fun, and it reminded him of easier days and good friends and a sense of home he’d long since forgotten. But as he looks into his own eyes in the mirror, vision choppy, all he feels is dread.
He tries to identify where the feeling is coming from, and when he moves one arm from the countertop, he almost thinks he’s watching from outside of his body, like a spectator.
He freezes, taking one shallow breath in as he looks back up at the mirror.
It feels like it does when he’s trapped inside the Solider. His stomach drops, and after he shuts his eyes he whispers a broken, “no.”
Now he’s desperate. He wants to be in control again even though he knows that’s not how alcohol works, not with all the tequila shots and draft beer he’s had tonight.
He rubs his face, and when he takes his hands off his skin is red and his eyes look haunted.
He presses his heels into his eyebrows, trying to relieve some pressure, but when he shuts his eyes it’s like the world is spinning around him, and it makes him dizzy and lightheaded and he thinks he might throw up.
Just like he can’t control his body as well, he doesn’t have a solid grip on his thoughts. So memories flood back, one after the other, in such a rapid and terrifying succession that he thinks he might spiral, here and now in this bar bathroom.
He inhales quickly, searching the room desperately for something to distract him. He doesn’t find it.
Somebody knocks on the door, jolting him out of his skin.
“Bucky? Are you in there?”
It’s Steve, he realizes numbly. He doesn’t want Steve to see him like this. So he swallows thickly, trying like hell to push down the dull throb of helplessness, of not being in control, of what it felt like under the soldier’s spell.
And he opens the door, face relaxed despite the raging waters beneath the surface.
“Oh, thank god,” Steve says. “I couldn’t find—“
“Let’s go,” Bucky says, and he can hear the way his words are choppy and rushed but can’t fix it.
“Okay, yeah,” Steve answers, sounding puzzled. Bucky can sense his eyes on him as he pushes past, and he hopes to god that Steve doesn’t ask about it right now, because he thinks he might just break down if he does.
Luckily, Steve doesn’t say a word until about ten minutes into their walk home, until they’re out of the busy streets and into the tamer residential neighborhoods.
Two steps, one breath in. Two steps, one breath out. It’s a mantra Bucky’s repeated in his head for the last five minutes. If he can control his breathing, he doesn’t feel as much under the soldier’s grip, and he can think clearly.
Gentle yellow light spills onto the stone road in front of each little brownstone house. It reminds him of old New York, and of the before times when his life was on a normal path, but it doesn’t make him sad like it did during that year in Bucharest. He thinks that maybe having Steve here with him helps.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks finally. The dreaded question.
But Bucky doesn’t have the energy to keep his composure any longer. Maybe it’s the booze, or maybe he’s just tired, but he figures being honest is easier than trying to push it all down.
Slowly, his walls start to crumble. “No,” he whispers, shaking his head.
“Why? What happened?” Steve asks, and he stops walking. Bucky turns to face him.
He searches his eyes, and only finds genuine concern. Steve’s persistence to be let in is wearing Bucky’s barriers thin.
The hopelessness is still present, tied together with the feeling of being drunk, and it still threatens to spill over like an overflowing dam despite his efforts to hold it in.
“I don’t know,” Bucky whispers, facade crumbling. “Steve, I— I don’t like this feeling. I swear to God, I’m gonna freak out right now.”
Steve’s eyes widen. “Hey, it’s alright,” he says, and Bucky knows he’s trying to help, but his words just make it worse.
“What the fuck,” Bucky mutters, running his hands through his hair as a nervous habit. His breath is coming faster. He tries to repeat the mantra— two steps, one breath— but he just can’t seem to get it right this time.
He knows when he goes down it’s not a pretty sight.
“Bucky, listen—“
“Shut up,” Bucky snaps, chest heaving. “I’m sorry— just— please, stop talking.” A piece of him, buried far beneath the immediate panic, hopes he doesn’t sound too harsh.
He leans against a planter, one of the big ones that hold entire trees that line the streets of the residential zones, fingers curling over the edge and digging into the dirt on the other side. He keeps his eyes fixed on the pattern of the stones on the ground, tracing them over and over as his breath comes in ragged gasps. Panic pulses through his veins and it feels like the world as about to close in, like it’s all spiraling and he’s about to fall into that black hole in the center.
Because in his mind, he’s the soldier again, watching his body from the outside, unable to do anything to help himself.
And that’s a position he never wants to be in again. He’d rather be dead than be held captive within his own body like he was for all those years.
He can feel Steve beside him, silent but honestly comforting, and his gentle presence acts as some kind of guiding light. Bucky focuses on him as his stomach does somersaults and his fingers dig deeper into the dirt.
After a few minutes, he thinks he can manage words, and he knows he owes Steve an explanation.
—
Anxiety twists in Steve’s throat as he watches Bucky lean against the stone planter. He looks around, still on edge like he was in the tiki bar, but satisfied to find the street empty.
It’s been ten minutes since Bucky’s said a single word, and Steve has seen enough veterans with post-traumatic stress to know what a panic attack looks like. But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“I’m sorry,” Bucky croaks finally. His voice is a rasp that’s hardly louder than a breath.
“Don’t apologize,” Steve murmurs.
Bucky swallows, and his fingers finally uncurl and he lets go of the death grip he had on the stone rim of the planter. He moves slowly and carefully, and Steve is suddenly aware that Bucky isn’t a stranger to this kind of mental struggle.
“I’m still sorry,” Bucky says, looking up at him with exhausted eyes.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Steve insists. “It’s okay. There will be road bumps. It’s okay.”
Bucky bites his cheek and nods, and Steve knows he’s only agreeing because he’s too tired to put up a fight.
“You want to sit down for a bit?” Steve offers, pointing to a bench on the other side of the street.
Bucky agrees, and once he sits down he leans his head back against the brick wall behind him and shuts his eyes.
Steve sits, too, and stares at Bucky’s profile outlined by the gentle yellow street lights, noticing at the way his eyebrows are furled and tense, but also noticing the familiar curve of his nose and mouth and chin that Steve was so convinced he’d never see again. Regardless, concern swirls in the pit of his stomach.
Because Steve knows Bucky. He knows how he was before the war, even, with the way he’d keep everything inside so nobody else would be burdened by his problems, so he wouldn’t have to hurt anybody but himself. Steve hated it then, and he hates it now.
But he bites his lip, not wanting to push at the Bucky’s boundaries, because he’d only just now been let in, and he doesn’t want to jeopardize the newfound trust.
He watches the carefully timed rise and fall of Bucky’s chest, and he knows that he’s counting his breaths. It’s a technique they used to teach in the army.
“If you want to tell me what happened,” Steve starts softly, “you know I’ll listen.”
Bucky presses his lips together slightly, just a small movement. Steve starts to backtrack.
“It’s okay if you don’t, but—“
“It felt like I was the soldier again,” Bucky interrupts. “In the bar, after those fucking tequila shots. Being drunk like that, not in control, it felt like when I was under.”
Steve goes silent, a spike of nervousness unsettling him when Bucky mentions the soldier. Because they both know the serum in him is still active, and that if they’re not careful, and someone who knows the words comes around, it wouldn’t end well.
“But you weren’t,” Steve says, seeking confirmation. “You weren’t the soldier.”
“No,” Bucky says quickly. “I wasn’t. But the feeling, Steve. I got scared, like it felt like I was watching my body from the outside. And I spent too many years like that.”
“I know,” Steve breathes. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have gone so hard on your first night out.”
Bucky cracks a tired half smile. “Thanks for making me sound like a bitch.”
Steve grins softly. “You are.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Steve laughs, a familiar warmth spreading through him.
They sit there for a little while longer, until Bucky moves to stand up.
“Let’s get home,” he murmurs. “And… thank you for staying with me. It helped.”