The Asset: The Beginning and End of the Winter Soldier

Chapter One

The voices were distant and unintelligible as he slowly regained consciousness. From his perspective, no time had passed, he had just closed his eyes as the cryogenic stasis began. He had been through many such awakenings over too many years, he knew he only had to wait a short time while his body adjusted. As full muscle control came back to him, he tensed slightly, preparing himself for the machine that would send electricity into his brain to destroy his sense of self, and the ten words that would seal his obedience to Hydra. Time passed, no one dragged him to the machine, instead people were helping him to sit and gain his strength back with voices that were soothing, encouraging. He looked around, remembering at last that he was not in Siberia, he was in Wakanda. Hydra had been destroyed and he had a new mission: to remove any remnants of the Winter Soldier and Hydra's control of him from his mind.

"Sergeant Barnes? James?" A woman's voice asked. He focused on her, recognizing her as one of T'Challa's guards and an elite warrior of Wakanda. Her name finally came to him as the last of the effects of the cryogenic freezing faded from his mind.

"Okoye?" Bucky slowly sat up, seeing more of the elite warriors, all female, known as the Dora Milaje.

"We are ready to begin your treatments," Okoye said, "if you are ready."

"I'm ready. How long was I out?"

"Not long, not quite a month. It did not take us long to decide on a course of action."

"You're sure about this?" Bucky was skeptical, not hiding his worry.

"I am sure," another voice said, coming around from behind him. This woman was younger and did not look like one of the warriors. "I'm Shuri, the one who will make sure you'll never be controlled by anyone again."

She smiled, completely sure of herself, her confidence enough that he felt a little calmer, if not relaxed. She did a cursory examination of the place on his left shoulder where a metal arm was once fastened, but when he looked, there was nothing there. The last of the old metal arm that Hydra had built was gone, replaced by a new, better apparatus where he suspected a new arm could be attached. He felt relieved the old arm that had forced on him by Hydra was gone.

"We do have a new arm for you," Shuri explained, responding to his expression. "We had to upgrade the implants, everything is vibranium now, including the arm. We did all that before you woke up."

"A new arm?" Bucky couldn't hide his misgivings and Okoye looked at him eyebrows raised.

"You don't want it." When he shook his head, Okoye nodded. "Just as well. I decided it would be best for your treatment to be done without the arm. For your focus, and our safety."

"What's the treatment?"

"Physically, we will try to destroy the Winter Soldier," Shuri explained. "I'm working on that; it will be ready when you are."

"You will be ready after you have achieved some sense of separation in your mind, between you and the Winter Soldier," Okoye added.

"I'm not the Winter Soldier, I'm Bucky Barnes," he said, feeling confused again. "How much more separated do I need to be?"

"Are you really separate?" Okoye asked. "Do you feel like you are only Sergeant James Barnes?"

He almost gave a quick answer, but something in how intently she was looking at him made him pause and think. For seventy years he had been the Winter Soldier and no one else. He had only regained his identity as Bucky Barnes after he'd nearly killed Steve on the Project Insight helicarrier. The next two years were spent learning how to live as Bucky Barnes, with what he'd felt was partial success: the Winter Soldier was still there, but he was also Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier had taken over completely once again, when Zemo had spoken the words, resulting in more death until he'd managed to break free as the result of an injury to his head that would have killed him if he hadn't been enhanced.