[oom] i wake to sleep and take my waking slow

[nerves_of_ice]

The first few days after Bucky goes under are spent in data analysis and quality assurance. There's a lot of information in the human mind, after all. Much of it is messy and complicated and stored in structures that are interconnected in unexpected ways. And when it comes to a project like this, something that's never truly been done before with a biological mind versus synthetic structures and artificial intelligence, something that has the highest of stakes, there's no second chance and thus no room for error.

Shuri spends her time focused on the mission during the first few days, leaving the majority of the data integrity checks to her technical team. She reviews their work at the start and end of each day when she comes to check on her sleeping patient, making corrections to methods and systems and processes where needed. She makes sure that there are two untouched backups of the original digital representation stored safely at all times in case they have to start over. Finally, they're able to confirm that everything is prepared, that the digital representation is not only complete but stable, and that the real work is ready to begin.

Once the mission's done, she turns the weapon prototype and its blueprints over to a few of her most highly-trusted developers for analysis and immerses herself in Bucky's mind. She'd already drafted the initial algorithm, of course, and has spent nearly three months refining it against the initial scans, every additional scan she's done since, the data from the notebooks Bucky'd kept and the memories he'd written down. She doesn't think it'll take too long to finish it.

It takes weeks.

She ruins multiple copies of the digital representation in the first two weeks while testing the algorithm against it - first in simulation and then in practice. It's the practical part that turns out to be problematic. During the first few tests, her code destroys HYDRA's trigger programming as intended, but then also devours the memories attached to it and proceeds to spread like a virus through everything it can reach. The next series of tests fails to fully eliminate the triggers, and post-implementation simulation reveals that the damaged programming, if not fully removed, will destabilize the mind entirely over time, leaving the subject lost to madness or dementia or both. Shuri refuses to allow any of it. Even the possibility is too much. Nothing must be left to chance. Nothing of harm must be allowed to remain.

Meanwhile, silent in the cryo chamber, Bucky sleeps on.

They're into the third week before the first test is passed. All work comes to a halt in the lab as they stare at the displays. No one dares breathe until the test is repeated. When the second series of results flashes up on screen, showing success across every aspect, the lab explodes in cheers. Instead of becoming easier, Shuri's work becomes even more painstaking and demanding, as she sets out to ensure the smallest nuances are fully refined. She creates additional copies and runs the algorithm against them under high-strain conditions. She practices transitioning the new digital copy from server to server to server, trying to eliminate any and all possibility of data loss during transfer.

At the end of the third week, she sends for T'Challa.

____________________

The first thing he's aware of is the cold. This kind of cold he knows all too well. It chills all the way to the bone, pinning him in place with frigid air around him and a cold surface under him. He's too cold even to shiver. Bucky can't move or speak, or do anything at all other than lie still and quiet, listening to the soft hissing sound that's the only thing he can hear.

He drifts in and out of awareness for a while as the light around him gets brighter and the temperature starts to rise. It's not until there's a loud 'click' and the hum of the cryo chamber opening that he finally opens his eyes.

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

"We decided it was better to leave it a mystery," Steve tells her, and this time Bucky's laugh is full and bright.

[from_the_outside]

She laughs and shakes her head at them. "That reminds me," she says, "I'm putting the Rocky movies on both your lists."

She shifts to sling both legs over the arm of her chair, her fingers still loosely twined with Bucky's, and looks at them both fondly. "I almost wish there were a place we could go out," she tells them. "Not that the Citadel isn't great. But I miss having a spot to go to for a drink... or dancing," she adds, with a quick grin at Bucky.

[nerves_of_ice]

"There's probably somewhere ... maybe in the city," Steve says, with a pointed look at Bucky, who gives a miniscule shake of his head in turn. "If you tried to find it, that is."

"Maybe," he allows.

[from_the_outside]

"Well," she says, squeezing Bucky's fingers in hers and smiling, "maybe if you get sick of losing at board games we can try to find one sometime."

She's in no rush. She might look ready for a night on the town, but honestly? She's just as happy sitting here with these two goofballs.

[nerves_of_ice]

"I might have an idea of where to look," he admits. "But the way I recall it, I won the last game we played."

"That's what I remember," Steve confirms.

[from_the_outside]

"Please," she teases, grinning, "I let you have that one."

Steve laughs and shakes his head. "You play dirty," he tells her, and she laughs.

"That's a vicious lie. I play clean as a whistle."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I gotta side with Steve on this one," Bucky says, openly amused. "You cheat, baby."

[from_the_outside]

"Hurtful," she says, but she's still grinning. "Slander. There's nothing in the rules that says you can't try to distract your opponent. I play smart, that's all."

Steve is looking openly skeptical, and she laughs at his expression. "You guys should have seen family game night at the Carters'. It was a bloodbath."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm getting that impression," Bucky laughs, squeezing her hand.

[from_the_outside]

She squeezes his hand back and swings her feet a little in midair, enjoying being off these heels.

They look nice, but they're murder to stand in for hours at a time.

Her smile is a little wistful as she thinks about her parents, about long quiet evenings at the dinner table playing gin or rummy or Clue. They're fine, she knows. Sad. Worried. But nobody's going to hurt them looking for her. They're safe from that, at least.

[nerves_of_ice]

Both he and Steve can read that wistful expression plain as print. They trade a quick look, Bucky gives him a small nod, and it's Steve who makes the attempt.

"Probably not much more cutthroat than this guy and his little sister when they got going," he observes, lightly.

"Becky," Bucky clarifies.

[from_the_outside]

"Oh yeah?"

She glances from Steve to Bucky and back again, her smile brightening. "She sounded like a real firecracker. I bet she gave you both a run for your money."

[nerves_of_ice]

"She sure did," Bucky agrees, and Steve chuckles. "Remember the time she dumped that pail of water over your head?"

Bucky grimaces.

"Boy, do I ever."

[from_the_outside]

That gets another laugh out of her and she tugs at Bucky's hand, grinning.

"I'm sure you deserved it. What did you do?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Teased her," Bucky says, laconically, and Steve shakes his head at him.

"He told her she was too little to come with us to the movie one afternoon."

"I called her 'short stuff,'" Bucky remembers.

Steve grins. "Yeah, you did. You were also trying to set me up on another blind date, which is why you didn't want her along, as I recall." He looks at Sharon. "So Becky climbed up the fire escape with the pail, waited until he came out the front door, ready to go, and tried to drown him."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon laughs so hard her stomach hurts at the mental image, and shakes her head. "What a little hellcat," she says, in an admiring tone. "Girl after my own heart."

She grins at Bucky. "I don't have any siblings, so I really couldn't say, but couldn't you have just told her you were trying to set him up? Sisters are people, right? They understand words."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Yeah, but she would have told him," Bucky informs her.

[from_the_outside]

"And rumbled all your big plans?" she laughs. Steve only shakes his head, looking faintly sheepish.

"You know the 'blind' in 'blind date' doesn't mean 'blindside your best friend by springing a girl on him', don't you?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"It doesn't?" Bucky asks, deliberately wide-eyed. "So that's what I got wrong."

[from_the_outside]

"Among other things," Steve says, desert-dry, and Sharon laughs again.

[nerves_of_ice]

He nudges Steve with a foot instead of an elbow and shakes his head.

"Hey. I did my best," he argues.

[from_the_outside]

"It wasn't you who got things wrong," Steve tells him, and slaps a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "I was the hopeless one."

"Oh, if we're doing 'hopelessly bad date' stories, I have many," Sharon tells them, amused. "Once a guy broke up with me on top of a mountain and then hiked back down without me. And no, I did not have a trail map."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Wait, what?" Steve exclaims, shocked, as Bucky turns to stare at her.

"He did what?"

[from_the_outside]

"What?"

She looks back and forth between them, and laughs. "If you don't like that, you're really not going to like hearing that he showed back up for Valentine's Day six months later because he didn't have a date for the night."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky groans aloud, while Steve just shakes his head.