Project 43: Healing

Manchurian Candidate

Everyone stayed silent as the jet cut through the air. Steve looked straight ahead with a determined look on his face while Bucky fiddled with his fingers, the guilt eating at him. Elias simply stared ahead, trying to keep himself grounded in the moment and not slip away to the past he had worked so hard to leave behind.

Elias turned to look at the mountains spreading by as they neared the base. The closer they got, the harder it was for Elias to keep himself calm. Soon he would have to fight them again. The thought sent another wave of shivers down his spine as he clenched his fists.

The skin on his hands was broken. Elias stared at the broken knuckles and gently poked them. He could feel the skin repairing itself under his fingers. It was like a swarm of tiny ants dancing on his fingertips.

"What's gonna happen to your friends?" Bucky finally asked breaking Elias out of his trance. Steve didn't answer, he just let out a sigh and shook his head slightly.

"Whatever it is, I'll deal with it," Steve finally said but Elias could hear the slight break in his voice. Nothing mattered more to Steve than the team. Elias envied the idea of caring for something so much even when it clearly hurt his brother.

"I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve," Bucky said, staring straight ahead at the floor. EElias waited for Steve to say something, knowing it would mean more coming from him.

"What you did all those years," Steve started turning back to look at Bucky. "It wasn't you. You didn't have a choice."

"I know," Bucky said, still refusing to look at either one of the brothers. "But I did it," he ended and it cut through Elias' heart like a knife. Somehow in four words, the man was able to sum up the pain Elias was feeling every waking moment of his life.

Elias wanted to say something, tell Bucky that he would learn to live with it, that he would accept it eventually, but he couldn't bring himself to open his mouth. Bucky had only been out of Hydra for two years, while Elias had been living his life and running away for over a decade. Still, he couldn't find anything comforting to say to the other innocent man whose life was taken away by Hydra.

It was familiar, too familiar. The mountains looked the same as they always did, like a warning. Even if you were able to escape, you'd freeze trying to get away.

As soon as the jet touched the ground, Steve and Bucky got up and towards the door. Elias, however, found himself as frozen as the landscape around them. He could only stare ahead, praying that it would all somehow disappear.

"Elias?" Steve asked from the doorway. Both he and Bucky turned to look at the still man facing away from them.

Elias couldn't answer. Instead, he slowly got up, trying to hide the way his hands shook by hiding them in his pockets. His face was cold and emotionless, just like he had taught it to be and he quickly nodded to the two friends. Elias knew Bucky would see right through him, but luckily Steve didn't say anything.

"You remember that time we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in the back of that freezer truck?" Steve asked his best friend, trying to cheer him up.

"Was that the time we used our train money to buy hot dogs?" Bucky asked back with a small smile on his face.

"You blew three bucks trying to win that stuffed bear for a redhead," Steve recalled.

Elias was grabbing another gun from the jet's compartments when he felt a bang of sadness. Bucky was always Steve's brother, not him. Bucky was always the first choice. He was Hydra's favorite weapon, something Elias spent seventy years trying to be like but failing miserably. Steve would always take Bucky over Elias and he knew it. Even tho he had always known it, it didn't get easier with time.