Project 43: Healing

Who I am

Elias felt like he was back in Avricourt, staring at an old plaque, loosely nailed onto the rock wall. Only this time the plaque didn't tell him about the memories he had lost, it didn't remind him of his past or send a wave of memories to flood his mind. This one read, 'You could be something more.' Elias heard the words echoing in his mind but he was having a hard time grasping them even as he tried one by one to make them make sense. Everything he thought he had known was shattering in front of him, revealing behind it a view that Elias couldn't quite make out yet.

"How could that help Bucky?" Elias asked shaking his head. His mind was traveling somewhere between disbelief and denial as he tried to shake away the ideas that were trying to knock down his entire belief system.

T'Challa sent Shuri a concerned look as he tried to make up his mind on what to do with Elias. He couldn't tell if Elias was about to freak out on everyone in the room or close in on himself, both of which could be extremely destructive. 

"I don't think it is wise to discuss this much further," T'Challa said, almost like a warning as he observed the soldier in front of him. Elias' whole body was shaking, his fists were curled up, and his muscles were incredibly tensed. T'Challa could see the man's breathing quickening as his eyes pulled out of focus. 

"I don't understand," Elias growled, more to himself than anyone else in the room. His voice cracked slightly as if he was fighting against his own words.

"The programming in your mind has been designed to shut out signals it deems destructive." Shuri began explaining, carefully choosing each word, trying her best to not mention Hydra or what they had done to Elias. Even tho she was excited to show off her hard work, even Shuri could see how hard it all was for Elias.

"Everything that has been done to your mind is actively fighting against certain ideas or actions you encounter in your daily life." Shuri ignored her brother's concerned glances. She was certain that if she could just explain to Elias how everything that happened to him could be used for something good, he would feel better. 

She didn't quite understand why she felt such a strong urge to help the man but she did. She wanted him to find a bit of comfort in his life after a century of pain. Even if she wasn't the best with emotions, she could understand the numbers and graphs in front of her and they told a clear story of pain, experiments, and torture. She knew what Hydra would have had to do in order to completely reprogram Elias' mind and all she wanted was to fix it.

"Now that we understand this, we should be able to find a way to make Bucky's mind fight against his triggerwords the same way your mind is."

Elias was staring blankly at the floor but in his mind, he was drowning. It was a weird sensation, standing on dry ground, breathing normally, all while feeling like he was in the depths of the ocean, feeling the pressure of the water around him as it tried to suffocate him. Everything Shuri was saying was trying to stab at a wall he didn't know how to break.

"Against what?" Elias finally asked after a long uncomfortable silence where the royal siblings simply stared at him nervously. The question came out more aggressively than he meant, clearly taking Shuri by surprise.

"What is my mind fighting against? What are they keeping from me? Even after thirteen years of running away from them?" Elias asked, turning to face the Wakandans. He didn't mean to be so aggressive but he couldn't keep it from bubbling up to the surface. He didn't even know why he was upset or why his fist refused to unclench.

Shuri looked down at her feet. She couldn't face the broken blue eyes that were staring right into her soul. There was something so gutwrenchingly sad about seeing the soldier like that, especially when she knew what was making him act like it.