In the initial days of his recovery, Shuri finds that Bucky is a man without much peace. His memories come back slowly, then all at once, like waves crashing violently against an unsuspecting shore.
It’s a lot for anyone to handle, really.
Which is probably why she catches him one night, pacing frantically in her lab.
“Something on your mind?” she calls out.
He mumbles something unintelligible in response, clearly upset. She takes that as a yes.
Shuri steps in front of him, so he stops moving so damn fast. Tries to keep her voice as gentle and soothing as possible.
“Hey — it’s OK. Tell me.”
It takes another moment, but he meets her gaze at last, looking for all the world so disheartened and so broken that she can feel a physical ache in her chest.
“Shuri, I’m not cured.” he finally chokes out.
What?
She frowns. “Of course you are. Why wouldn’t you be? The de-programming took.”
It had, hadn’t it?
He shakes his head.
“No, I — that’s not what I mean.”
He intakes a shaky breath, as if to calm himself, before he continues.
“HYDRA built a backdoor into my mind. They knew someone might be able to cure me one day. And they needed a way to access my mind again. Install new triggers, if need be.”
Shuri already knows where he’s going. She can just tell, from the sinking feeling in her gut.
But she needs to hear him say it.
“Why are you telling me this?” she mutters.
He shifts uncomfortably, as if pulling himself together for the request he’s about to make.
“They built one for me. So I want you to build a backdoor into my mind, too.”
Shuri knew it was coming. But she’s still stunned.
“What do you mean?” she manages to ask, though she already knows the answer.
He steps closer now, the sudden urgency of his request written all over his features.
“I need you to create a failsafe of sorts. A series of words that will immediately incapacitate me.”
He should stop. But instead, he continues.
“If I was ever re-captured, I need a way of knowing that I’m not going to hurt anyone. Not again.”
Of course. Selfless to a fault. She should have known.
“I don’t want to talk about this.” she mutters stiffly. Surely, he doesn’t realize what he’s asking of her.
Right?
“You don’t have to talk about it. But you do need to make one.” Bucky takes her hands in her own, usual boundaries suddenly forgotten in what she suspects is a moment of weakness or vulnerability or both. “Can you promise me that, Shuri?”
And as much as she hates it — she’d do anything for him. Even write his death sentence, as it would appear.
“Yes.” she finally whispers. “I will.”
So she builds him one, and then she tries desperately to forget about it.
Keeping this project out of her mind is a struggle.
She knows why he’d made the request. Building the mental backdoor was the only way to guarantee that he’d never be exploited again.
After decades as the Winter Soldier, he simply can’t bear the possibility of hurting an innocent.
His soul couldn’t take that toll.
She wishes, however, during countless sleepless nights like this one, that he’d stopped to consider just the toll it might take on hers.
Years pass.
The White Wolf and the princess become partners in everything — except each others’ beds.
Not for a lack of desire or interest, either. But the moment never seems quite right.
She loves him, yes. But there’s no time.
So she waits.
HYDRA makes its way back onto the global stage.
If a head is cut off, two more shall take its place, as the saying goes.
And after years of relative stability, suddenly, HYDRA poses a real threat to the stability of Wakanda, their people, their life. A strategic counterstrike seems inevitable.
At last, the perfect opportunity for a mission reveals itself.
It’s incredibly dangerous. There are too many damn things that could go wrong.
Not to mention, if Bucky got recaptured… Shuri shudders to think what they would make him do.
He doesn’t have to come. But in the end, he says yes.
Without hesitation. Like a true hero would.
Shuri accompanies him, this one time.
This is their fight. And they go together.
It’s a trap.
As they get captured by HYDRA forces, too many, all at once, all Shuri can think is, no no no no no.
Bucky doesn’t go down without a fight.
It’s not in his blood to succumb to enemy will, not since he’d been de-programmed. The fierceness that had earned him the moniker of White Wolf is on full display against the men who have captured them.
But in the end, he can’t win. The HYDRA leader who’d caught them entertains him, anyways.
“That was a nice little show of finesse, Soldier.” he drawls, sounding impressed. “But no matter.”
He motions airily, and the soldiers holding them shove the two of them into a nearby cell.
“You have two minutes to turn yourself over without fighting, Barnes, or the princess dies. And then we drag your ass from here, anyways. As you do.”
A pause, and then he smirks.
“Oh — but don’t worry, Soldier. You can say your final good-byes.”
His ugly, slimy little grin widens, one that makes Shuri’s insides twist.
“We promise we won’t watch. So use it wisely.”
The HYDRA men clear the cell, as promised. Once they’ve sealed the doors and are out of earshot, Bucky turns to Shuri, and one look at his face makes it clear that his mind is already made up.
“The failsafe, Shuri. You need to use it.”
No.
No. No. No. No.
“What?” she breathes out, brain still trying to process just what he’s saying.
“There’s no other way.” he begins, voice already tinging with sudden desperation.
He won’t make her do this. He can’t.
“There MUST be!” she yells back, suddenly furious without explanation. How dare he?
He meets her with the same intensity, the same righteous anger.
“Shuri! You don’t know them. If they capture me again… the horrors they’d make me do…”
He shudders in memory of it all. Rasps out his next words.
“I’d rather die than ever go back under the wing of the people who controlled and tortured me.”
He’s on his knees, now.
“Please.” There’s a small tremble in his voice, and she can feel her heart break all over again.
She never wanted to see him beg. Not for this.
Her next words are so faint, it’s practically a whisper.
“Am I going to lose you?”
The look on his face is soft, sad.
He takes her hands in his own, just like he had so many years ago, in her lab.
Locks eyes with her, for his next words —
“You’ve always had me, Shuri. You always will.”
Shuri’s heart is beating so damn fast she thinks she might die. He’s gazing up at her with so much tenderness right now, so much more than she’d ever know what to do with. But there’s no succinct way to say that to him. No real way, to put years of waiting and wanting into words that make sense.
“I love you.” she breathes out, instead.
The look on his face when she says those words — it’s slow, then all at once, like waves against a shore.
He looks like he’s had a revelation.
His next movement is so fast she barely registers it.
Bucky rises to his feet, puts his hands on both sides of her face, and crushes his lips against hers.
He kisses her roughly, intensely. Like a man without inhibition.
She doesn’t care.
It wasn’t gentleness she wanted. Not now. Not after all this time.
So she moans beneath him and knots a hand in his hair, pulling him harder against her.
He growls softly, low in his throat, and then his arms circle her, gathering her fully against him. Then suddenly he’s got her pressed against the wall of the cell, kissing her like it’s the last thing he might ever do.
She doesn’t know how long they stay there, lost in each other. No time would ever be enough.
In the end, they finally manage to pull away, breathing hard.
They stay like that for several moments, and she tries desperately to memorize it all: the way his lips had felt against hers, the way he’d held her so close to him, the heat and passion and desperation with which he’d kissed her. How could she ever forget?
Finally, he speaks again.
“Remember me like this, Shuri.”
He lets a callused, shaking hand run over her face. Wipes away the tears she hadn’t even realized were streaking down her cheeks, down her chin. She can’t find it in herself to care, anymore.
This is the man she loves, and she’s about to do something terrible to save him.
He leans in close and quickly kisses her again. An act of comfort, more than anything else.
“You can do this. I believe in you, my love.” he whispers.
She nods numbly and wraps herself in his embrace. Closes her eyes and takes him in as long as she can. As long as she’s able.
The buzzer finally alarms. Their two minutes are up.
The HYDRA boss enters again, looking smug already.
“Time’s up, Soldier. Let’s get going.”
He makes to open the cell door, and that’s when Shuri yells it out. The string of words, the failsafe, to open the mental backdoor and deactivate Bucky.
The trigger works. The effect is instantaneous. His eyes glaze over, and he immediately slumps against the side of the cell wall.
The HYDRA boss is seething. He turns to Shuri, hisses out his next words —
“What did you do to him?”
“You can’t use him anymore. I’ve de-activated him.”
Shuri continues, taking pride in the anger that spills across the man’s face. “No programming of yours will ever take, no trigger words will ever re-activate him. He will never serve HYDRA. Never again.”
She nods defiantly.
The HYDRA leader screws his eyes in suspicion.
“You’re lying.” he snaps. As if that made any sense.
“Why would I?” she shoots back. “Look at him yourself.”
They both turn to look.
Bucky’s been deactivated, all right. His once-beautiful blue eyes, so expressive and sad, are now fixed in a blank, empty stare. There’s no sign of intelligent thought, just a shell of a man.
Just seeing it rips her heart out. Makes her want to break down into tears.
But she holds her ground. For Bucky’s sake and her own, she doesn’t let her facade drop.
It works.
Slowly, an ugly, twisted smile crosses his face.
“I believe you, princess.”
The lackeys look at their leader in awe and disbelief.
What?
“Congratulations.” he ambles on. “You win.”
He makes to look around.
“Well. No reason for us to keep him, is there? The Soldier is useless to us, now.”
He grins again, and his crooked, ugly teeth glint unnaturally in the low light of the cell.
“He’s all yours, princess. And I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to get out of that cell with that pretty little head of yours, when the time’s right.”
Shuri resists the urge to tell him off, as satisfying as that would be. They’re so close to freedom, she can taste it.
He’ll finally leave, and then they’ll go back to Wakanda and she’ll fix Bucky.
They almost make it. But at the last moment, the man turns around.
Draws close to the cell again, presses his face against the bars so it’s practically next to hers.
“Oh, but there’s one pesky thing, ma’am… HYDRA doesn’t like keeping old operatives as loose ends.”
Before she can even so much as move, let alone comprehend what he’s saying, the man pulls out his gun, turns to Bucky’s unmoving form, and unloads the last of his bullets into his gut.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Shuri doesn’t even remember how it happens. She only remembers that she screams—
“No! ”
He laughs maniacally and backs away, job now done. Gleefully makes for the exit, and slams the door shut, hard, trapping her for good.
Shuri doesn’t care. She collapses to the ground of the cell. Somehow, manages to crawl to the corner where Bucky’s lifeless body lies, and pulls him into her arms.
He’s a dead weight. His blue eyes, unseeing. Skin, still warm.
But there’s no heart beat.
No.
No. No. No. No.
It hits her, slowly, and then all at once — the man she loves is dead.
It was the only way to save him. Years later, she'll remind herself of that.
But for the moment, she tugs him close, cradles his face one last time, and dissolves into tears.