Chapter Text
Bucky was silent the whole way to Wakanda. Too much had happened too quickly for him to process. His mind felt like it was in a holding pattern. He had vaguely heard T’Challa apologize for trying to kill him. It had barely registered. Somewhere over southern Europe, Steve had said that T’Challa was offering them sanctuary as repayment for unjustly going after Bucky. Bucky isn’t so sure T’Challa was being unjust. He had a damned good reason to believe Bucky killed his father. There was a video with his face on it, not like there was a lot of room for argument about who planted the bomb. It was a fluke that someone went to all that trouble to break up the Avengers. Nobody could have foreseen that happening. T’Challa was in the right as far as Bucky was concerned.
Bucky felt much the same about Stark. Hell, if T'Challa was at all justified, then Stark was more than doubly so. He could hardly believe they'd come away from that fight alive. Stark hadn't used any of those terrifying missiles of his. The deadly unibeam had only gone off once and Stark had taken his hated HYDRA arm and not his head. When he'd seen that light glow and start to power up, he knew he was dead. No one could survive being hit with that. But Stark had been holding back. Bucky could understand Stark not wanting to use deadly force against Steve, his teammate, someone he thought of as a friend even if he was mad at him. He should have had no such compunctions about taking out Bucky. He couldn't understand Stark not killing him outright for assassinating Howard and Maria Stark. Whether he'd wanted to do it or not, whether HYDRA was ultimately the ones responsible or not, it was his hands that had brutally murdered Stark's parents.
T’Challa was already in Wakanda when they finally arrived. The Quinjet was fast, but apparently, Wakandan technology could make an even faster personal aircraft. Bucky allowed himself to be led off to a medical suite. He was still coasting in his mind. He’d had a pretty eventful few days and now he was in a lot of pain. It interfered with his thinking. It was easier to just let his brain go into soft-focus while his body knew he was somewhere safe. He had Steve at his back and a promise of asylum from T'Challa. He hated letting his guard down, but if he was able to do it anywhere today, this would be the place.
The Wakandan doctors gave him something for the pain that was actually effective for super soldiers. His body relaxed for the first time since the arm was severed. He hadn't really recognized how tense he was. He knew it was painful, but he'd had worse pain with HYDRA. He just wasn't used to that anymore. He was going soft. They capped off the exposed wire endings in his shoulder and covered the whole stump with a little beanie. That was when he finally started paying attention to what was happening. Both Steve and T’Challa were in the room, but the other med beds were empty. There seemed to be no other patients in the med suite.
“Where’s Stark?” Bucky slid to the edge of his bed and craned his neck to see every corner of the room. Stark wasn’t in medical. Maybe there was another room. Probably, Stark wouldn't want to be in the same room as Bucky.
“He’s not here. You’re safe. He can’t hurt you now.” Steve blurted out and put his hands up in a placating gesture as he stepped closer to Bucky.
“What do you mean, Sergeant Barnes? Dr. Stark stayed behind in Siberia to make his own way out. As he made his own way in.” T’Challa looked as though he was worried for Bucky’s state of mind.
“No, I mean, I know he was in Siberia. But he was hurt. And the suit was broke. He couldn’t make his way out on his own. Nobody brought him here to see the doctors?” Bucky was confused. He knew Steve had nearly carried him from the bunker, he knew he'd been in a daze and not paying attention, but Steve knew Stark was incapacitated. And T’Challa was there. Surely one of them made sure Stark got out.
“Bucky, Stark was fine. You're safe here. He can't find you.” Steve was close enough now to put one hand on Bucky’s flesh shoulder. He was focusing on Bucky very intently.
“Dr. Stark was injured? Captain, you said Dr. Stark was fine. Is Sergeant Barnes correct? Did Dr. Stark need medical assistance?” T’Challa’s voice had become sharp.
“Stark was fine. He went crazy and was trying to kill Bucky, so I disabled the suit, but he was fine. He was basically cussing me out the whole time me and Bucky were leaving.” Steve sounded annoyed by the line of questioning. He looked at Bucky again in that very focused way that was starting to make Bucky uncomfortable.
Bucky looked around Steve to make eye contact with T'Challa. “He was hurt. Steve broke the suit. He broke Stark. I helped, we were all fighting. But it was two against one and Stark wasn’t trying to kill anybody. He was angry and hurt, for good reason.” Bucky paused and looked down at his flesh hand in his lap. He flexed the fingers. He'd used the flesh hand to kill Maria Stark. He didn't even have the justification in his mind of having used HYDRA's weapon to kill an innocent woman. A bystander. He slid the hand under his leg so he didn't have to see it.
He continued, “I kinda lost the plot for a while in there, it was almost like instinct to fight as hard as I could. I really put the beat down on him. Steve was even worse than I was. Stark was just lashing out, no strategy, no intent but to hurt the ones that had hurt him. There was no kill objective. At the last of it, I thought Steve was going to take his head off with the shield.” Bucky once again met T’Challa’s eyes. “Steve is wrong. Stark was hurt bad. And that suit wasn’t getting him out of there.”
“Of course he was trying to kill you! He would have killed you if I hadn’t stopped him! He is fine. He’s probably home right now chatting with his buddy Ross.” Steve stepped right up against the med bed. Close enough that Bucky could feel the heat from Steve’s hip almost touching his thigh.
“Captain, General Ross is no friend of Dr. Stark's. Was he injured that badly? Is Sergeant Barnes saying that you left a seriously wounded man behind?” T’Challa appeared personally affronted.
"No, your majesty. Stark was not seriously hurt. Bucky was the one seriously hurt. Look at what Stark did to him!"
“If nobody helped Stark leave, then yeah, we left a man behind.” Bucky couldn’t believe that Steve had just left Stark there in a freezing HYDRA bunker. That he had never planned to help him.
“I will check into this. Right now.” T’Challa turned and left the room after a pointed and probably angry glance at Steve.
T'Challa came back to talk to Bucky a few hours later. "You were right, Sergeant. Dr. Stark was still in Siberia, in a destroyed suit. He was unconscious and in respiratory distress. He needed immediate medical attention. Two of my physicians remained with him for a time. I notified his Vision anonymously and the doctors retreated into hiding when he arrived to remove Dr. Stark."
"Is he gonna be okay? He pulled his punches, but I didn't. And I really thought Steve was gonna kill him." Bucky wasn't at all sure he could live with himself if he had killed the entire Stark family. And one of those when he was supposedly in his right mind. He closed his eyes to shut out T'Challa's solemn face but in the dark behind his lids, all he could see was Stark's fear when Bucky was trying to stop that glowing light that powered his suit.
"He will recover in time. We gave him some advanced treatments. Nothing that will be obvious to outsiders, but enough to ensure his survival and prevent permanent damage. Except perhaps his lungs. Apparently, his previous experiences left him with only partial lungs. I was unaware of this. The damage to his ribcage and the wounds that damage left on his lungs is repairable for the most part. However, I fear the already reduced lung size and the breakage of an artificial sternum will leave a more permanent disability."
T'Challa looked thoughtful, "I was certain Dr. Stark came to assist you. I believed that he intended to help you and then peacefully take you in. I am sorry I misjudged his purpose."
"Oh, you didn't. He came to help. He wasn't coming there to attack us. It was that other guy. The fake doctor. Zemo?" T'Challa nodded and Bucky finished his explanation. "Zemo had a video. He wanted to break up the Avengers. Steve knew about the video, Stark didn't. It was proof that The Winter Soldier assassinated Howard Stark. And his wife."
T'Challa actually stepped back in his shock. "You murdered his parents and he let you live?"
"Well, he was pretty pissed. I think, though, that he was maddest at Steve. Steve knew and kept it a secret. Stark went after Steve first. I might should've let them fight it out, but I jumped in to help Steve, just like I always have. We ganged up on him."
T'Challa's expression was pensive. Bucky hoped he wasn't going to kick them out now. T'Challa had fought on Stark's side at the airport. He might not want to help someone who had nearly killed his ally. Given T'Challa's intense reaction to the death of his own father, there was little chance he would be accepting of Bucky knowing that he had killed someone's father even if it wasn't T'Challa's.
"This is disturbing news. I came to you first about Dr. Stark's status since you're the one who expressed concern. I feel that I need to have a very serious conversation now with the Captain. I fear he has misled me about the reasons for his actions and his intentions. You rest here. The doctors will be back soon to provide further treatment options."
"What about The Winter Soldier Core? Zemo killed them, but HYDRA could still use their corpses for serum research."
"I will send a team to incinerate the bodies. They will not be allowed to fall back into HYDRA's possession. But they should not be allowed in the hands of any government either. It will be taken care of."
T'Challa left Bucky alone with his thoughts. He had been triggered just yesterday. The terror he had felt when Zemo started reciting the words was still under his skin. He hoped no one had died while he was in Soldier mode. He was thankful Stark hadn't died in Siberia. He had so many deaths on his hands, so many people HYDRA had sent him after. He didn't want to think that he had almost added to that tally of his own free will. Sleep was a long time coming. His exhausted body was no match for his active brain. When he finally slept, his dreams were filled with a juxtaposition of Stark alone in the freezing HYDRA bunker and himself alone in a sea of endless white and cold. Both left to die, alone.
Bucky spent the rest of the week being thoroughly examined by Wakanda's medical professionals. They seemed far more advanced than the rest of the world. HYDRA's scientific expertise in both technology and biology had been cutting edge, often ahead of what was generally available. What Wakanda had to offer was superior to HYDRA in every way.
Bucky stayed in the medical suite that week. Steve was there nearly all the time. He had left for over half a day early on. When he'd returned, the rest of his team was with him. Bucky hadn't ever imagined Steve would break people out of jail. Especially not people who were rightfully arrested for crimes they actually committed. The team wasn't precisely welcome in Wakanda. T'Challa was working on a plan for them to leave. Sooner rather than later.
Bucky appreciated T'Challa allowing him refuge here but he didn't feel he could remain. T'Challa believed he had wronged Bucky. Bucky knew he had wronged Stark. If T'Challa owed a debt to Bucky, then how much greater was the debt Bucky owed to Stark?