Long And Lost (Book II)

Ch.8: If you could just forgive yourself

Next morning, and true to her word, Sigyn went to get Bucky and headed for Shuri's lab.
Sigyn knocked him unconscious, despite his protests, so they could work inside his head. It didn't take her long to realize that his lack of sleep wasn't related to the de-brainwashing process. The images she saw inside his head were terrifying.

"Night terrors..." Sigyn said, feeling a bit strained. "He's having night terrors, that's why he can't sleep." With her magic locked inside his head, she roamed between memories and made up monsters.

No, this had nothing to do with brainwashing. This was pure Bucky, trying to deal with the trauma and the fear. She saw him murder innocent people, blow up buildings, cause fake accidents. The small difference between the dreams and the memories were the slight change of color.

Memories were more monochromatic, like they were recorded in sepia. Sigyn guessed it must have been cause he wasn't doing it on his own. When those events happened, he had been violently coerced to do it.

Dreams, however, were in bright primary colors, if not exactly accurate. Blood was the brightest red, people were the brightest yellow, and Bucky saw himself as the darkest black. This was him feeling guilty, seeing all the ghosts of his past coming back to haunt him.
In his nightmares, the dead wouldn't stay dead. He would try and run, but the shadow that engulfed his body would follow him. Everywhere he looked he'd see the faces of those he had murdered. They would be wearing the bright red stains of the blood he had spilled. The other yellow faces with haunting white eyes would look at him and whisper. They knew, everyone knew, everyone could see the shadow around him. His hands were covered in blood, no matter how hard he tried to wipe them clean.
He could hear other voices, trying to convince him it was not his fault. But they would be drowned by the whispers of the dead, blaming him, pointing at him, howling at him.

Sigyn could sense the fear, the guilt, the pain. The enormous baggage of over 50 years of violence and death. It didn't matter to him that he wasn't responsible for it. He had still done those terrible things. And right now, he didn't know how to cope.

Slowly, her magic receded from his brain. Bucky woke up a few seconds after.

"I'm going to be sick." Was all he mumbled before bolting to the nearest trash can.

Sigyn knelt beside him, one hand on the back of his neck, the other on his chest. The nausea disappeared and the headache dimmed down.

"Thanks." He said hoarsely.

"Yeah. My fault. Sorry about that."

"Any luck?" He stood up slowly, but wasn't looking at her.

"I think you know the answer to that, James." She said as she helped him up.

"Bucky. My name is Bucky." He suddenly snapped. "Why don't you ever call me Bucky?"

Sigyn just looked at him, slightly thrown off, but not entirely surprised.

"I'm sorry, I--"

Bucky didn't say anything else and stormed back to his room. Shuri was about to go after him, but Sigyn stopped her. She knew they had to let him calm down on his own.

"It's not something any of us can fix." She explained.

The rest of the day, Sigyn felt really conflicted. She had to tell them the truth. But after Bucky's outburst that morning, she also feared his reaction. Specially knowing how he felt for her. It took her months to get close enough for him to trust her, and now she was going to put that trust on the balance. And not only Bucky's, but also Steve's. She reckoned Steve would take it even worse.