Three snapshots from Bucky Barnes' life.

Three snapshots from Bucky Barnes' life.

“This broken white boy needs our help, doesn’t he? On account of how you sort of ruined his life?”

T’Challa winces and shoots the frozen Sergeant Barnes a hilariously guilty look. “That’s not—I didn’t—really, I think his life was already—”

“It’s fine! I can clean up your mess,” she tells him, still smiling. “And he didn’t—he didn’t kill Baba, so. We should help him, we should make it right. No one else can help him, can they.”

How Shuri deals, after Civil War and Black Panther.

“This broken white boy needs our help, doesn’t he? On account of how you sort of ruined his life?”

T’Challa winces and shoots the frozen Sergeant Barnes a hilariously guilty look. “That’s not—I didn’t—really, I think his life was already—”

“It’s fine! I can clean up your mess,” she tells him, still smiling. “And he didn’t—he didn’t kill Baba, so. We should help him, we should make it right. No one else can help him, can they.”

How Shuri deals, after Civil War and Black Panther.

“This broken white boy needs our help, doesn’t he? On account of how you sort of ruined his life?”

T’Challa winces and shoots the frozen Sergeant Barnes a hilariously guilty look. “That’s not—I didn’t—really, I think his life was already—”

“It’s fine! I can clean up your mess,” she tells him, still smiling. “And he didn’t—he didn’t kill Baba, so. We should help him, we should make it right. No one else can help him, can they.”

How Shuri deals, after Civil War and Black Panther.

*******
Really great Shuri-centric story, focusing on how she's dealing (or failing to deal) with her father's death and the events of Black Panther. Some background Steve/Bucky, but the focus is really on Shuri.

“This broken white boy needs our help, doesn’t he? On account of how you sort of ruined his life?”

T’Challa winces and shoots the frozen Sergeant Barnes a hilariously guilty look. “That’s not—I didn’t—really, I think his life was already—”

“It’s fine! I can clean up your mess,” she tells him, still smiling. “And he didn’t—he didn’t kill Baba, so. We should help him, we should make it right. No one else can help him, can they.”

How Shuri deals, after Civil War and Black Panther.

*******
Really great Shuri-centric story, focusing on how she's dealing (or failing to deal) with her father's death and the events of Black Panther. Some background Steve/Bucky, but the focus is really on Shuri.

Bucky wonders if it’ll ever stop feeling like stealing: Steve Rogers, Captain America, the hope of a nation tucked into Bucky’s right hand. It’s the heist of the century.

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In which Bucky Barnes remembers himself, Steve, and what it means to be selfish – not necessarily in that order.

“…The modern viewer must remember that prior to the 1960s, soulmark portraits were the ultimate in taboo. But one can see how an artist like Captain Rogers would feel compelled to pick up his sketchbook…

...Captain Rogers never did a self-portrait; we can only speculate who his soulmate — or soulmates — might have been."

Franklin, Hannah. “Howling Commandos Leave their Mark in Portrait Series by Captain America.” Newsweek, July 9, 2009.

Post Civil War: life in Wakanda is full of surprises. And eventually smut.

Bucky's awake in Wakanda — deprogrammed, one-armed, arriving at something like peace. M'Baku's making his own peace: with T'Challa as his king, a new vision for Wakanda and the Jabari, and his failure to live out his family's dreams.

Then a HYDRA agent shows up on the remote Jabari border.

“…The modern viewer must remember that prior to the 1960s, soulmark portraits were the ultimate in taboo. But one can see how an artist like Captain Rogers would feel compelled to pick up his sketchbook…

...Captain Rogers never did a self-portrait; we can only speculate who his soulmate — or soulmates — might have been."

Franklin, Hannah. “Howling Commandos Leave their Mark in Portrait Series by Captain America.” Newsweek, July 9, 2009.

Steve's life after he throws down the shield and hides with Bucky in Wakanda is composed of the following: moping, having 80-year-old epiphanies, dramatically tearing the Avengers symbol off his uniforms, learning too much about goats, fighting, fighting more, fighting even more, trying not to make it weird, definitely making it weird.

Shuri's paper is refuted in a subclause of a footnote. This means war. (And somehow eventually takeout and fully-funded projects and kissing.)

The first time Steve visits Wakanda, Bucky plans it obsessively.

He picks neutral clothes, the ones Steve will expect, trims his beard and lets Shuri tie back his hair. He studies himself in the mirror for twenty minutes in her bathroom and pulls it back out again, then keeps staring until she yells something exasperated through the door about white boys and their vanity, and he puts himself together and goes down to the plaza and completely freezes when Steve gets out of the plane.

Bucky Barnes is still tangled in his puppet strings even though he's free.

M’Baku fought for T’Challa. But should he keep fighting for T’Challa’s vision? The king is professing change, such deep change, while the Jabari are supposed to be the guardians of tradition.

It’s a complex problem, which demands a cool head. So M’Baku could really do without an old love coming back to haunt him, an obnoxious royal teenager, and T’Challa’s secret one-armed guest.

"You doing okay, kid?”

Steve releases a breath, deciding how honest he wants to be. No point in lying. No point in telling the truth, either. "Glad to see you."

"That’s not what I asked, but same to you, punk."

Bucky doesn't understand T'Challa's generosity and it is making him nervous. He kind of knows that, but it feeds into itself. Some responses are hard to break and kindness, when it doesn't weird him out, makes him paranoid. He can, in some abstract way born of Sunday mornings on a hard pew at St. Anne's, appreciate that man is supposed to be good to those less fortunate, but it's been a long time since St. Anne's and Bucky's not sure what to do with this kind of grace. It's a language he doesn't speak anymore. Steve's been translating when he realizes it's necessary, which isn't all of the times it is.

First, mangoes tied up in cloth, lying on M'Baku's throne.