Overheard At Wakanda

Not All Bad- Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warning- Bucky’s very bitter in this fic.

Coming out of cryofreeze was both extremely stressful and extremely relaxing for Bucky Barnes. It was like coming back from the dead- he felt numbness in his very mind as his first conscious thoughts, those of being conscious, penetrated the dark. Then feeling would begin returning to his cold, stiff limbs, and he would gasp for breath as his heartbeat would pick up its pace. His vision would sharpen and everything would tingle and all at once, he would be aware of himself, of his life.

He despised cryofreeze. He despised the cold. He despised winter.

And Bucky longed for summer. 

He longed to be Bucky Barnes again, eating ice creams with his buddy Steve during hot summer days.

He longed to be separate from what he had done, to be separate from his deeds and the Winter Soldier’s- but he couldn’t. They were very nearly one person now.

When T’Challa unfroze him briefly to try on a new metal arm he had had engineered (more on that, later), Bucky was reluctant to go back under, at least for a while. Amiably, he was offered an apartment to stay in and a break from being “frozen meat”, as T’Challa called it.

Bucky was prodigiously fond of him.

~***~

You had recently moved to Wakanda- you were a geologist, and you had gone through a lot of pain to finally gain permission to study the resource rich country. You considered yourself very lucky- the Wakandan royalty was known to be horribly secretive about its nation, but this new king, T’Challa, he was slightly kinder. You were a huge nerd, geology and palaeontology being your greatest interests. 

 You were dragging your boxes inside your new apartment, when your neighbour’s door opened.

  A young man walked out in a sleeveless hoodie- he was clean shaven, and his hair was concealed under a cap. He had light eyes you could easily get lost in and oh- a very familiar face.

  The only weird thing was a metal arm sticking out of his left sleeve.

You did the natural thing. You gawked at him, your (e/c) eyes travelling all over his body and resting on the blue star, surrounded by two red, circular stripes, on his metal shoulder. 

~***~

Bucky was heading out of his apartment to go buy some plums, because he had unfortunately eaten all of the ones he had stocked up on last week. He opened the door and stepped out, only to see a young woman with two boxes in her arms, staring at him.

 Her (h/c) hair tumbled down her shoulders, looking soft and silky. Her bright, (e/c) eyes were on his metal arm, either in fear or surprise, Bucky couldn’t tell.

He was half-curious, half-annoyed. 

Nobody could hurt him in Wakanda, he was safe there. But there was still the fact that  mothers picked up their children and scurried in the opposite direction when they saw him, and that grown men gave him hostile, frightened looks before they scuttled away. They all knew him. The world knew him as James Buchanan Barnes, deranged, ruthless murderer.

Or so he thought.

~***~

“Sergeant James Barnes!” you said, straightening. You knew this man. You had spent hours wandering in museums, looking at his special display at the Captain America exhibit. 

He scowled. 

“My name’s Bucky,” he said sourly.

  “Bucky,” you corrected yourself, excited. “I’m such a fan of yours!”

This seemed to catch him off-guard.

  “What?” he asked, standing there, looking rather like a confused puppy with his head tilted to one side.

 “I-uh, I’m a fan,” you said, nervousness taking over.

“Of what?” he asked ruefully. “Brutal assassinations? Pardon me, ma’am, but maybe you should see a doctor- murderers are not healthy idols for young women, or anyone else for that matter.”

 “I-no, no, of course not!’ you cried out. “I’m a fan of everything you did, well, before being, er, whatever it is that you,uh, did, I mean...” your voice trailed off.

 “You’re funny,” he said mirthlessly, walking away.

~***~

 He thought you had been making fun of him. Part of him was hurt- there was nobody in the world, apart from Steve and T’Challa, that would give him a chance at redemption. Part of him was bitter- what was the point of ‘redemption’ when what he had done was beyond vindication?

  He forgot all about his plums- he wandered about thinking bitter stuff and for a large part, missing Steve, then he returned to his apartment. 

It was nice being not frozen, but being not frozen wasn’t nice. Mostly it was hostile. While he was frozen, his mind was inactive. 

  Yeah, Bucky was going back under.

There was a knock on the door.

Bucky opened it to see the woman from the corridor.

  “Hello?” he half greeted, half questioned, giving her a half-smile.

  “Uh, hi,” she said, looking around his frame and into the apartment. “I just wanted to clear things up, from earlier.”

  He waited.

“I, well, I am a fan of yours. I was very impressed by the sacrifice you made for Captain America back in 1941- you could’ve died, you should’ve died- you were an essential part of the Howling Commandos and, well, as much a hero as Captain America in your own right. I don’t know if you know this, but they started giving out an award named after you, given to soldiers who fell in battle, a mark of valour and sacrifice. You were the first honorary recipient, and-” she broke off, chewing her lower lip.

 Something melted inside Bucky. About damn time, too. Sometimes the aftereffects of cryofreeze could linger unpleasantly.

  He smiled- a wide, pleasant, real smile that lit up his entire face like sunshine.

“Would you like to come in?” he asked.

 As it turned out, she said she would.

Maybe he wasn’t all bad, after all.

~*************~

  in my defence, this piece of crap has been produced by too many eclairs and three-thirty in the morning.

g’night.