The Seventh Avenger: Memories Never Die// Bucky Barnes

FIFTEEN: THE SOLDIER'S TALE

            S'yan's words throw me in a loop, and I can't help but stare at him with wide eyes, and my jaw hanging open. His... his brother, T'Chaka, had killed N'Jobu? His youngest brother? There is clearly more to the story than the kind doctor is letting on, but I don't have it within me to ask him for the details. Too caught up in my state of shock, all I can do is try to process the news, and wonder how S'yan has been through so much. I have no siblings of my own, so I can't fathom how it is that he feels about this startling revelation. To have one brother kill another is enough to tear a family apart.

          Maybe searching for the lost Wakandan isn't the only reason why S'yan hasn't returned home in over two decades.

          As if sensing my confusion, S'yan adds in his sombre tone, "I can practically see the gears in your head turning while you try and figure it out. Bast knows that I've spent the past thirteen years trying to come to terms with it."

          "Why... why would T'Chaka kill your brother?"

          Wiping at his teary eyes, S'yan sniffs. "It's a very long and complicated story- more so than the story I just told you. I think it's best I save you from the gruesome details."

          I can't help but think that it isn't just me that he is trying to save in this situation. Recalling the details behind one brother's murder at the hands of another is bound to be a painful experience that S'yan has most likely relived over and over again since it first happened; chances are he doesn't want to do so now.

          "When N'Jobu died, N'Jadaka was left as an orphan. His mother had been wrongly incarcerated when he was just a baby, and she later died in prison. He was sent to live with a family friend-"

          "You didn't think about taking him in?"

          "I wanted to. But I made a promise to the ancestors and Kamau to bring his daughter home, so N'Jadaka was sent to live with a family friend of his mother's. I had every intention of returning to raise him once my mission was complete. But then..."

          "You got tangled up with HYDRA," I finish for him.

          S'yan nods. "The last I heard, N'Jadaka had started high school and was already the top in his class. I last saw him when he was fourteen years old; he would well and truly be a man by now."

          Once again, a surge of pity washes over me like a wave at the tragic tale of S'yan Udaku, and the sorrowful tone in which he speaks. The man has witnessed so much death and destruction- already too much for his lifetime. His family has been torn apart, he is still seeking answers that have spanned across the past twenty years, and he remains just as much a prisoner within the four walls of this facility as the rest of us, in order to keep his nephew alive. It only makes me that more determined to find a way out.

          "He probably wouldn't even remember me," S'yan laments. "It- it's been years now, and even then we never told him who I really was for the sake of keeping my cover for my mission..."

          "You'll get the chance to tell him, Doc. You'll get the chance to see him again, and you'll get the chance to find the Lost Wakandan as well."

          Despite the firmness to my words, S'yan lets out a hopeless, watery chuckle with not an ounce of humour to be found within it. "You see, I used to tell myself those lies every night when I was first brought here, lying awake in my cell praying to Bast, Bashenga and the ancestors for those lies to become true. There's no point trying to convince me that they will, Miss Hathaway. It's been years and not a damn thing has changed; why would they now?"