[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

[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.

[from_the_outside]

Sharon just laughs again. "I've got a million of them, but that is by far the best story, if only because it has a Part Two."

These things hurt at the time, but now they're just amusing anecdotes to look back on, and she's grinning as she tugs lightly at Bucky's hand. "So the bar is set pretty low," she informs him. "There's nowhere for you to go but up."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I don't get it," Steve says, and Bucky nods to him. "Me either. It doesn't make any sense."

He shakes his head and squeezes Sharon's fingers. "I hereby give you permission to kick me off another mountain if I do anything like that."

Steve laughs. "I think you're safe, pal."

[from_the_outside]

"Thanks, baby," she says, amused. "But maybe just skip the part where that would be necessary and then nobody has to get kicked off a mountain, okay?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Okay," he agrees, equally amused.

"That's a better plan, I agree," Steve puts in. "No more mountains. For anyone."

The look Bucky turns on his best friend is warm. "No more mountains," he promises.

[from_the_outside]

"That works for me," she says, and squeezes Bucky's fingers before smiling at Steve.

[nerves_of_ice]

Steve smiles back, brilliant joy evident in his clear, direct gaze. Bucky's back, he's here, and he's himself, free of the burden he's carried so long.

His glance drifts from Sharon to Bucky, who's watching him, and whose mouth curves in a small smile as their eyes meet.

[from_the_outside]

This is the best she's felt in a long time. Everything went perfectly. Nobody got hurt. No one is recovering or ill. Everybody happy and triumphant and just pleased to be together. Bucky and Steve finally, finally getting some of that time they'd so desperately missed.

And somehow she gets to be involved, which frankly boggles the mind if she thinks about it too hard, so she doesn't. She just rests her head on the back of her chair and keeps her fingers loosely twined with Bucky's, and lets herself watch the both of them, a tiny smile never far from her mouth.

A good night. A good night. A win they all needed, and the start of a whole new chapter for Bucky.

[nerves_of_ice]

Quiet descends between them all for a moment, and in that moment, Bucky feels at peace.

True peace, for this second in time without the shadow of the Winter Soldier over him, at rest without another fight on the horizon, here in the company of two of the three people in this world who mean the most to him.

He feels his smile grow, wide and bright, as happiness threatens to overwhelm him, and he doesn't fight it.

[from_the_outside]

Nobody really seems to care what they talk about, or if they talk at all, which is the best kind of company in her opinion. She could sit here and listen to them tell stories from their shared childhood all night long.

She wishes she'd had the chance to befriend Steve in DC, before everything went to hell. She wishes she'd countermanded her orders and just told him the damn truth... but they're friends now, and she wouldn't change it for anything.

Just like she wouldn't change this: Bucky's fingers twined with hers, the deep happiness shining in his eyes when he looks at them. She can't imagine the relief he must be feeling, can only be grateful for her own.

And for tonight. And tomorrow. And the tomorrows now possible afterwards.

[nerves_of_ice]

Eventually, the comfortable, musing silences between stories get longer, as they cross the threshold between night and morning, and it's finally Steve who moves to stand.

"I'm calling it," he tells them, with a warm smile. "I'll see you both in the morning."

Bucky squeezes Sharon's hand and lets go as he gets to his feet, and as he does Steve pulls him into a hug. His arm goes around him in turn, and he hugs him back, tight.

"See you in the morning," Bucky murmurs. "We'll go from there."

Steve pulls back and smiles at him. "You bet we will." He lets go of Bucky and turns to Sharon with a warm smile. "Have a good night, okay?"

[from_the_outside]

"You too, Steve," she tells him, and stretches up to kiss his cheek. "Good night."

He gives her a smile and a wave and makes his way to the door, whistling some old tune as he heads out into the hall, and then it's just the two of them left. The garden room is dimly lit by some warm flickering lights she can't quite see, and it almost feels like they're surrounded by fireflies. She turns to Bucky, simple happiness written clearly across her features before she steps in to put her arms around his neck, leaning back to look up into his face.

"Hey, good looking," she says, and grins. "Wanna get out of here?"