Remember Me

Chapter 3

The lights in the room begin to pulse orange. "I have turned the cryogenic state to 0%. I estimate he will wake up in about 3 and a half hours." the assistant states.

"Good." Nakia nods as she taps away on her screen. "And can somebody turn off these lights??"

T'Challa puts his hand on Steve's shoulder and guides him to the door. "Let's wait in another room. Nakia will inform us when he is almost ready."

"Are you coming, Natasha?"

Natasha is still standing in front of the pod with her hand on the glass. She is startled by Steve and quickly pulls her hand from the glass, leaving a sweaty print behind. "Oh yes.. of course.. I was just.. Um.. Yeah, let's go." She turns around following the king.

Natasha's peculiar behavior causes Steve to raise an eyebrow. He shakes his head and thinks nothing of it.

- 4 hours later -

Natasha is staring to the pages of a magazine that was laying around in the room they were escorted to. It's filled with fashion tips where she doesn't care about at all. She is just staring at the words without reading them. When she wakes up from her daydream she looks up from the pages to watch Steve pace through the room. Almost leaving an indent in the carpet on the floor.

"You need to stop pacing, Steve. You're making me nervous."

"I'm just hoping we're not waking him up for nothing." Steve walks out the door into the hallway. After a few seconds her returns. "Still nothing. Why is it taking this long? They told us three and a half hours, it's already been 4."

"Just be patient Steve. They have the best technology in the world here. Everything will be fine." Natasha continues to stare at the pages of the magazine.

"What was that all about anyway? You in front of the pod? I thought you couldn't stand Bucky." Steve asks.

"It's not that" Natasha replies, trying to look uninterested in Bucky. "Every time I've seen him we fought. We just never had a conversation outside of that. Maybe we can get to know each other now after he wakes up."

Steve nods in agreement, thinking she made a valid point, not thinking about reading between the lines.

He gives up the waiting game. "I'm going to find out what's taking so long." He walks to the laboratory and he's just in time.

"Just in time" Nakia calls. "The Sergeant is waking up" The lights in the room begin to pulse green. "I told you to turn off those lights!" Nakia scolds.

Natasha runs back into the lab just in time. The glass door on the pod begins to open. The room fills with fog like vapor escaping from the inside of the pod. The temperature in the room immediately drops a few degrees. Natasha tries to keep her arms warm by crossing them and rubbing her upper arms.

Nakia walks up to the pod "Sergeant Barnes. Can you hear me?" Bucky lets out a soft groan, his eyes still closed. "How are his vitals?" She asks. "Vitals are good, just a small increase in his heart rate, but nothing out of the ordinary." her colleague answers.

"Welcome to the world of the unfrozen, sergeant." Nakia jokes. "Let's get you out of there. Some help Captain?"

Steve jumps up to help Nakia. He grabs Bucky's arm and lifts him from the pod, he puts him down on an examination table.

Bucky blinks his eyes before opening them. "Steve?" he asks with a hoarse voice. "I'm here buddy" he replies.

Nakia walks up with a glass with a thick greenish-brown drink, handing it to Bucky. He takes the glass carefully and takes a sip. His face is disgusted. Bucky tries to say something but nothing comes out. "Stop trying to talk, just take another sip!" Nakia commands at Bucky. He shakes his head and continues reluctantly.

Bucky finishes the drink. "Shit, that was nasty!" He's surprised hearing his own voice. "Oh wait, that's actually a lot better." The drink was to get his voice back after being in a cryogenic state. He turns to Steve and gives him a hug. "How long has it been? Have I missed something?"

He notices Natasha standing behind Steve and tries to look around Steve. Their eyes makes contact for a few seconds and he wonders why she's here. He hasn't seen her before without... You know... Trying to kill her. A small pool of guilt fills the bottom of his stomach.

"Please leave the room for now Captain Rogers and miss Romanoff. We have to do some check-ups first."

Nakia pulls out a screen from a nearby drawer and starts tapping on the screen.

- 30 minutes later -

Nakia enters the waiting room again. "We're ready, you can talk to him now."

"How is he? Everything good?" Steve asks. Natasha is really excited to see Bucky. "Yes he is perfectly fine. But you can break the news to him." Nakia leaves.

They enter the lab again. Bucky is dressed in grey, wearing sweatpants and a fitted t-shirt. He's wearing white shoes and a black piece of fabric over his left shoulder where his metal arm used to be. He looks really soft and peaceful, like he had a really good night sleep and has no care in the world.

"So, tell me. Why did they wake me? Did Nakia found a way to remove the brainwashing?" Bucky is exited to hear the news.

Steve looks at Natasha. "Good to see you buddy. It hasn't been long, about 4 months."

"Good to hear they found a solution so fast!" Bucky replies. "But why are you here? Are you going to help?"

Steve is hesitant to break the news to Bucky. He does not want to disappoint him.

"They don't have a solution yet." Natasha blurs out. "We came here to warn Wakanda, and you."

"What?? I told you not to wake me up before there was a solution! It's too dangerous to have me around these peaceful people with this." He points to his head. "I could hurt someone! Jesus Christ Steve." He inhales and sighs deep while rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger.

"Please stop this pity-party you're having." Natasha points strictly at Bucky. "Like I said. We came here to warn you, and the people of Wakanda." Bucky is caught off guard by Natasha and looks up surprised. "We recently found out a group of HYDRA followers are after you, making this place unsafe. For anybody." Natasha calms herself down by inhaling deep. "Listen. They know you are here. If they catch you and activate the Winter Soldier, everybody in Wakanda is in danger."

Hearing that name makes Bucky slam his fist down into the examination table, creating a small dent. "Who's behind this?"

"We don't know" Steve replies. He hands Bucky the picture and he looks at it. He recognized himself "That's me alright." He clenches his yaw. "But I don't remember this. Is this the guy?" Steve nods. "We were hoping you would recognize him."

Nakia enters the room, hearing wat they were talking about. "Maybe I can help" All three look up to Nakia. "I have developed an alternative treatment for Bucky's memory loss." Steve looks up. He's hopeful. "But it's never been tested before and I don't know if it will work."

"I.. I don't know." Bucky replies. "Not sure if I want to remember all of the horrible things I've done. The fragments I can remember are horrible enough."

Steve agrees. "We can't make you do things you don't want to do, we will find another way to identify this guy."

Natasha looks stern at Bucky. "No, we need to know who this guy is before he kills a lot of people. A lot of lives depend on this, so I think you should give it a shot."

Steve shakes his head. "No Natasha, we can handle this in another way.

Bucky puts his hand on Steve's shoulder. "She's right, I can try the treatment. My mind is already messed up so things can't get more worse."

"Are you sure buddy?"

Bucky nods. "Yeah, set it up. I'm ready."