001 wakanda

[ostavil]

There's peace in Wakanda. Bucky had spent a little while under the ice while Shuri figured out a way to work on his deprogramming and while it's been a painful process, it's a necessary one and he's glad for all her work on the tangled knot that's HYDRA and the mess inside his brain. It's all wired incorrectly, a bomb that never went off but still needs to be defused, and he's scared every time she goes in there that something will go wrong and he'll attack her; it hasn't happened yet.

When he isn't working with her or Ayo, he has a little hut to himself where there are goats and sometimes children come visit him to see the curious white man who has taken up on the fringes of Wakandan society. Steve has visited a few times but when they announce a visitor this time, it's apparently not Steve. They're still at the palace being received, though, so Bucky takes the time to tidy up where he's been staying as much as he can one-handed; he's neat by nature but he also isn't used to having company come by either.

Who could it be? Sam? Sharon? Bucky isn't sure who would come to visit him aside from those two and Steve. Tony Stark certainly wouldn't and he isn't sure the Wakandan government would even let him in. Would Wanda come to see him? He's not certain. He imagines she's in hiding the same as he is, trying to avoid the Sokovia Accords and their inevitable consequences on her. It seems she's suffering more from them than anyone else, even himself, so he doesn't think she'd risk coming to see him.

He catalogs the other people he knows and he comes up with Natasha. He's got a strange history with her. He's shot her twice while the Winter Soldier but curiously, both times, he'd shot her non-fatally. It's almost as if he'd known that she needed to live even if he didn't know her and that's not what the Winter Soldier does. He doesn't leave loose ends. He kills whoever is necessary, even an innocent bystander, and Natasha has been actively opposing him both times he's encountered her. Even when he'd been activated by Zemo he'd attacked her but didn't take her down. There's something in him that protects her and he wonders why that is and always has. He doesn't know why she'd visit him but he wouldn't turn it down, either, so when he hears someone at the door he calls for them to come inside.

"Come in, I'm not busy." He's just finishing up wiping down a counter in what counts for his kitchen and when he comes into view of the visitor, he sees that it is Natasha. Curious.

"Hi."

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[widowsdance]

She's nervous as she approaches his hut. She's heard about how he's doing from Steve, but it was all about his relationship with Bucky. No one, not even Steve knew anything about her history with The Soldier, and she planned on keeping it that way. For all she knew, Bucky had no memory of any of it, so what was the point of digging at old wounds for herself.

However recently Steve had gotten busy with something during his regularly scheduled trip and asked her if she wanted to go instead, citing Sam being busy as well. Honestly, it wouldn't have taken much more of an ask to get her to go. She'd been toying with the idea in her mind, but explaining to people why she was there was something she'd wanted to avoid so this had caused her the easiest cover.

"Hey there," she says when she sees him. The mixed feelings flood over her, reminders of an old love, fear of the last couple times she's fought him. Now here he is standing in the door of a hut, in Wakanda, looking so soft and far from either of the men she's previously known.

"Steve said he was worried you were getting bored and sent me," she says with half a smile. "He didn't warn me that the goats might try to eat my jacket as I walked by though."

[widowsdance]

Natasha had originally said she could only stay in Wakanda for a couple days. She can’t bring herself to leave that early though so she stays for 10 before she makes her way back out to Siberia for the work that was intended.

She left a burner with Bucky, so she checks in with him once to let him know she’s going to have to go dark for a few weeks but not to worry. Everything is going well and she’s making progress in the work until her cover is blown and she has to do a what she’s been trying to avoid. The American’s have been hunting her since the fight in Berlin.

She’s left with no other choice then to call them in though, to throw off the path of the red room. Involved in all this she has to fake her death, which she wasn’t looking forward to but the loud media presence would make it easier for her to disappear in the smoke show.

She lays low for a week before being able to finally head back to Wakanda.