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His last view, before stepping into the chamber, was of Steve, sad and understanding, in front of a wide window overlooking a wild forest. Wakanda.
The soon to be King, his host of grief and acknowledgement was speaking to a young girl off to the side of the room. All eyes seemed to be focused on him, but he could only see Steve. The man he'd grown up with; had escaped time with, in some fashion. He thought, You and me, til the end of the line, and then the chamber seal was rising, bringing with it the icy crystals from memory, and he closed his eyes to them, afraid his last thoughts would be of horror and Hydra. Steve, he focused as the calm wall of cold wrapped him, and he knew no more.
The hiss of air was breathtaking, awareness mind breaking. The soldier woke, as he normally did, alert and all at once. His muscles were frozen, not with cold but paralysis, completely holding him still.
"Sergeant Barnes? Can you hear me, Sergeant." He couldn't turn his head, couldn't force his eyes to open or his vocal cords to shiver. "The scanner says he should be awake, but I can't..." the woman's voice sounded young. "If you can hear me, Sgt. I want to let you know I'm doing everything I can to help you." She growled in frustration. "That should have worked, to wake him up if nothing else. I don't know why..." the voice wandered off, and he was left alone, drifting slowly back into sleep.
He could feel the cold clearness of the Winter Soldier echoing the fiery passion of James Barnes. The war inside fought with him until the silence in his head would have killed his sanity. From the barest sounds he could identify, he was somewhere secluded, alone for the most part, except then a rustle of cloth, the metallic clink of armor, the heavy tread of boots in regularly scheduled increments on patrol.
Occasionally there was the woman.
She came sometimes, and didn't leave others. Sometimes she spoke to him, others she spoke around him. Telling him about the frustration that came with being The Inventor. Sometimes the man, the King, came to her, sometimes the man, The Brother. He couldn't count the passing hours, days, weeks, by any one thing. The woman spoke to him, she spoke to her company, she spoke of buildings and programs and the minutia of every day.
"I hope you can hear me." She told him. "The council won't let me do anything ever again, if they think I've gone mad." she laments.
***
It's been several days since he woke to find one of the Dora Milaje, the King's guard ushering him away from the palace. He's been told the locals in the village will look after him. Are strong enough to stop him, should the need arise. He is without his arm, without his western clothes. More comfortable than he can remember being in close to 70 years.
His eighth day back in the world, he wakes, to the scrutiny of three children. Boys, with painted faces. He can feel himself jerk his arms in front of his face in defense. Self-defense, and not in anger, or in command. Honest. The boys have been here before, curious to the one they call The White Wolf, in the distinct clicks of Xhosa.
The boys run away, he can hear them laughing. Then he hears her.
"Are you playing around with that man, again?" She says, laughing herself. His heart thumps once, twice. In anticipation of the heavy fog that... does not come. The pressure is gone from his mind. The need for instruction, for order is gone from his mind. He sits, then stands. glancing around the now familiar walls of the red clay room. The door remains unbarred, unblocked. He steps from it, watching the boys he'd woken to scatter, and the woman...
The girl. She's standing in front of a lake, watching him take hesitating steps towards her. Watching him move for the first time in what feels like...years. His own movements, his own thoughts, his own body alone. She's peering at him, accounting for everything he is, and he stops beside her.
"Good morning, Sergeant Barnes." She says. As if nothing had ever been wrong. As if she was waiting for him not to know her.
"Bucky." He replies. James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant of the US Army. So many names, so many titles, and he wants her to call him Bucky. It's who he is now.
She nods, "How are you feeling?" And he's heard it frantic, heard it bored, heard it in hospitals, in alleys, in Steve's voice, in his mother's. He's never felt it so sincerely before. He gives as honest an answer as he's possible.
"Good." he says, then to make sure she knows, Bucky looks in her eyes. "Thank you." She smiles at him. As honest as he has been.
"Come, much more for you to learn." the hand on his chest startles him a little. He stares across the lake, at the reflection of the sky above, the most beautiful view earth could make, before he follows the beauty of humanity she has with her.