Archive of Our Own

Five secrets T'Challa kept, and one he told.

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From a very early age, Shuri had demonstrated a knack for machinery. Vibranium seemed to rush eagerly to her hands, yearning to do her bidding; holographics leaped into the air, happy to be summoned; electricity jumped and arced and sparked, but always with respect to its human engineer. And while T'Challa was intrigued by it all, Shuri seemed positively obsessed with all the capabilities of the resources at her hand. Technology loved Shuri, and she loved it just as much in return.

Her parents, for the most part, encouraged her. Science and technology were vital fields of study, crucial to their culture and way of life. Their mother applauded Shuri when, at the age of eight, she successfully assembled, from complete scratch, a functional set of kimoyo beads. Their father baked Shuri's favorite pastries for dessert after she upgraded everyone's vibranium rings to warm if one of their family was in danger. After Shuri figured out how to add seismic charge to tiny vibranium beads at the age of thirteen, their mother took her to the Dora Milaje and asked them to give her a challenge. When she put together voice-activated staves that concealed blades for them only a few weeks later, their father enrolled her in an engineer's conference taking place over a weekend next month.

So T'challa was quite accustomed to seeing Shuri in her lab, an enormous room full of things he tried not to touch but that fascinated him all the same. Now eighteen, he'd only just acquired the powers and mantle of the Black Panther, and he'd asked Shuri for some help refining his suit.

"Try this!" Shuri had enthusiastically said, pushing a glove into his hands. "Try it on, and then make a fist, and then point it at that wall right there, with the target, yes, and then curl your thumb under your fingers!"

Too young himself and not yet accustomed to the fickle nature of experimental technology, T'Challa shrugged and did as he was told. Almost instantly, he regretted it: the kickback was enormous, sent him flying through the air to skid across the mercifully-open space with an indignant squeal of clothing burning on highly-polished flooring. The wall he'd aimed at was significantly worse for wear, with a massive, charred, smoking crater where the target used to be.

Getting his bearings, blinking the stars from his eyes, T'Challa barely had time to process the scene before panic took him. Shuri. Scrambling to his feet, ungainly, T'Challa had only made it a few awkward steps forward before Shuri appeared, looking just as panicked. Immediately, relief flooded T'Challa: walls could be replaced. Sisters couldn't.

He'd thought the stricken expression might fade from her face, too, when she saw that he was up and moving and alright. But it didn't, strangely. T'Challa felt the anxiety rising again as she bolted for him, arms outstretched, still looking for all the world like another explosion might erupt. Throwing his arms around her, maybe squishing her a little too tight if the quick little squeak was any indication, T'Challa hurriedly tempered his strength and asked her nervously, "Are you okay?"

"Don't tell Baba!!"

And then it all made sense. Pausing, letting it sink in, it wasn't long before T'Challa was suddenly roaring with laughter. Of course she would be concerned about being grounded, and not about launching him halfway across the room! "I won't, I won't!" he promised, even as the peals of mirth continued to trickle forth. "But fix it! You can't keep blowing me up or they'll definitely notice!"

A day or so later, the lab was completely back to normal. Shuri winked at him when she asked if he wanted to see something cool later. The glove worked perfectly. T'Challa was not blown up again (accidentally, anyway.) And his mother and father never did find out "what that big thump was."

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Truthfully, he was still adjusting to the Dora Malije accompanying him everywhere he went. As Prince, they were ever-present but largely unobtrusive, more concerned with the King. So while their presence was felt, it was always a bit more background. Now, stepping into the ole of King that his father had left behind, T'Challa found it harder than he liked to admit to adjust to the new feel of the Dora Malije's presence.

Okoye was the warrior most often at his side. Captain of the guard, the fiercest warrior Wakanda had ever produced, loyal to the death, and yet still able to smile and be human to him, T'Challa knew in his bones that there wasn't a better warrior for the job. She was stern and unyielding when she needed to be, gentle and kindly when she could be, and absolutely unflappable even in the most trying of circumstances. Having known him since he was a boy, she was also well-attuned to his moods and his needs, and often addressed them without him even knowing what he needed until she provided. Space, company, a listening ear, or just common sense: Okoye was always there.

So when T'Challa glanced up at her footsteps and saw her eyes swimming with the depth of her emotion and her face etched with a troubled expression, his own face immediately fell into a frown and he set aside the tablet he'd been using to work on and asked her, "Okoye, is something wrong?"

She paused then, perhaps a step or two farther than she would normally stand from him. With her heavily-lined eyes averted, she started, "No...nothing is wrong. But I do wish to make you aware of something."

Sensing her hesitation, T'Challa's brows deepened in the creased V they were forming and he prompted, "Okoye, you may always speak freely in my presence. You need not fear judgment or rejection or ridicule. You are a wise, trusted adviser and protector who has served myself and my family well for years. Please, do not feel as though you need to leave things unsaid from me."

At this, Okoye's concern fell away somewhat to reveal the beginnings of a smile; when she raised her gaze to T'Challa's, it was a bit lighter there as well. "You have grown into a fine young man," she remarked, her tone warming. "I thank you for your kindness." Breathing in deeply, straightening her back and squaring her shoulders, Okoye began again, "I am seeing someone. And normally I would not concern you with such matters, but I feel that, because of who it is, I should mention it...so that you hear it from one of us, and not through the grapevine, and not out of necessity because things went wrong and circumstance demands it.

"I am in a relationship with W'Kabi."

Ah. Now it made sense. And it was thoughtful and professional of Okoye to say something now, as opposed to, as she'd mentioned, hearing about it from a third party or finding out when the situation may have forced their hand. But T'Challa's heart was swelling with joy: his best friend would be hard-pressed to find someone better than Okoye to share his life with. They would have a wonderful relationship, T'Challa knew.

"I am very happy for you both," he replied promptly, beaming with genuine happiness. "I trust you both to remain professional, and I wish you both all the very best from the bottom of my heart."

Okoye appeared radiant in that moment: all doubt and trepidation erased, she offered him a heartfelt salute, a gesture of loyalty and gratitude, and excused herself. T'Challa, still grinning, found himself unable to pick up his work again just yet. Instead, his mind swam with thoughts of the new couple, wondering how long it had been and how it had happened and the other usual musings. It would be nice to send them a card, he decided: just well-wishings and good fortunes. Deciding that congratulations were in order, T'Challa got up to find a card somewhere. He would take care of this himself: Okoye and W'Kabi could tell others when they were ready.

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There are still days when he feels it. Hatred, blinding and crippling and deafening in its fury, still washes over him sometimes, nearly impossible to bridle and certainly impossible to ignore. After Zemo, he had vowed to let go of it, but he had learned very quickly that it was not so easy to do, and certainly wouldn't happen overnight.

Some days, he was reminded how young he was when he felt the need to respond with anger first and foremost. It seized him whole in a white-hot grip that seemed unbreakable. But it was his choices that made him, not his emotions, he reminded himself, and if he needed to take a few moments to breathe deeply, then so be it. Wisdom was not, he was discovering, never getting angry: it was knowing when to excuse oneself to step outside for five minutes of fresh air before responding to what had made him angry. This was something that his father had understood well, but perhaps his mother understood even better. Such a gentle, kind, caring woman had likely never raised her voice in her life, and T'Challa admired what came so naturally to her.

He decided, entirely subconsciously, not to speak of it. It felt like it ought to be private, because this was something entirely his that only he could fix. In moments when he succeeded, when he was able to close his eyes, take a deep breath, and breathe out the anger and release it from him, he felt the pride of victory swelling in his chest. At times when he responded hastily, or snapped, he tried not to turn to self-flagellation and instead tried to see such experiences as opportunities to learn. That was more productive than making himself feel worse, he imagined.

And it came. Slowly, with plenty of time and being cognizant of every opportunity to be wiser, kinder, more forgiving. Before he knew it, the anger was a memory, one that was not out of reach but was now a fair distance away. This was wisdom, this was strength, this was maturity: this was what made a leader. With this knowledge, his confidence grew, and T'Challa felt as though he'd finally reached the summit of his own personal mountain. It wasn't something he'd necessarily had to hide, but he internalized it all the same. Somehow, it made the victory taste sweeter when in the end he found it.

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After blowing all of her covers and then switching sides and turning on those she had promised to help at Leipzig, the Black Widow was just about out of hidey-holes. Far from helpless, she retreated quickly and completely, cloaking herself in shadows and illusion and making a run for it to avoid ending up like Sam, Wanda, Clint, and Scott in The Raft prison. T'Challa wanted to extend the olive branch to her, but something held him back. Whether it was fear of not being trusted due to the fact that it was he who she had fired on to let Bucky and Steve escape or because he didn't want to risk exposing her via communication, T'Challa didn't know. But he stayed his hand, and Natasha Romanov remained hidden.

She came out of hiding on her own terms. She reached out on her own terms.
T'Challa wished he could say he'd been waiting for some sort of communication from her, but he was embarrassingly surprised when she sent him a letter, old-fashioned and about the only thing she could send him that would guarantee receipt and response. He arranged for them to meet in a week, just outside one of the Water Tribe's villages. He did not say why he'd chosen that place, but he knew it well and could make another stop while he was there.

When he ducked through the little entryway into the tent he'd designated for their meeting, he saw her right away. She was seated with her left shoulder to the doorway, her right leg crossed over her left at the knee, her arms loosely draped across her lap. She was looking at him already, and perhaps there was the beginning of a smile on her lips. For all intents and purposes, she looked utterly relaxed and calm: but T'Challa knew just how well a woman like her could hide something she didn't want others to see.

"How have you been?" he asked, seating himself across from her as she inclined her head to him in greeting.

"Alright," she admitted, and T'Challa realized it was likely the closest thing to straightforwardness he would get from her. "And yourself?"

In the space of a single heartbeat, the events of the last few weeks unfolded before his mind's eye: coming home from Vienna without his father; the grieving; the coronation; M'Baku's challenge; his victory; Klaue and that whole fiasco; Erik Killmonger, and the brutal truth about his father and uncle; Erik's death, and the reclamation of his throne and kingship, and the subsequent cleanup and mourning. His body still twinged with pain when he moved certain ways, or too quickly, and his mind certainly still exploded with agony whenever he let it wander. But he was alive, he had won, Wakanda was his again, no weapons had passed their borders, his family was safe...it could have turned out much worse, he supposed. "Alright," he responded, a bit delayed but not so much so that she could read too much into the silence. She likely read plenty as it was.

"I can't stay long," she began, already brisk and to the point, "but I did come to apologize. I made many mistakes a few weeks ago, and some of them were quite costly."

T'Challa almost expected the familiar flare of anger when he thought about the sting of the Widow Bite holding him back as he chased Barnes ans Rogers into their Quinjet, but instead, all he felt was a somewhat hollow remorse. "I ought to thank you," he gently countered. "You knew what I did not. You knew I was about to kill an innocent man. And you had the courage to stand in my way."

Natasha's face twisted then with something like pain and fear but also the firm conviction not to allow either to rise within her. "At least take this, then," she sighed, reaching down under the small table between them for a moment and coming back up with a folder. "I do ask that you keep it to yourself...but accept it as a good-will gesture."

T'Challa accepted the folder, gaze flickering back and forth between its surprisingly-dense weight and her now-impassive-again face. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he placed the folder down on the table and gently prised open the pristine, intact cover of the manila to reveal what he had come to recognize instantly as HYDRA intelligence. Ancient typewritten font crisscrossed with red stamps and black brands and the occasional hand-written note, usually in the same style: it jumped out at him instantly.
"I...was not so different than James a little while ago." And he could hear the thousands of layers in those words, understood that today was not the day to peel them back, let them pass with little more than a nod as his fathomless eyes scanned the pages without really seeing, and she spoke again: "I think...that what's in there could help him, too."

Now was not the time to ask how she knew. Because of course she knew: she'd made her living and stayed alive for how long by just knowing. Today was not the day for questions at all, T'Challa realized. Natasha had essentially come to dump this in his lap, apologize for her perceived betrayal, and leave again. "You give me a gift," T'Challa told her, closing the folder on the painful memories for now, "and a great deal of trust. I thank you."

Natasha simply shook her head, once more staring out over the brilliant plains instead of at him. "I'm just trying to right my wrongs," she declared, but so softly T'Challa had to wonder how she managed to cram so much conviction into such little volume. "And James...there's a lot of wrong that needs to be righted there."

Here, perhaps, he could push, T'Challa mused, contemplating her a moment. He might find the answers in the folder on the table between them; he might not. He still wanted to try. It almost sounded like... "You two have history together?"

Her smile was twisted and fey, and it should have looked gruesome and fierce but it still looked beautiful on her. "When we were both under Russian control, we worked together for a while. On and off, here and there...it started out when I was young, so very young. The most promising trainees got to train with the Winter Soldier on the rare occasion that he was taken out of cryo-freeze. We were so excited. But me...I was more than excited. I idolized James. The perfect weapon, they told us: the perfect soldier. We didn't know, of course...we were so young and so brainwashed already. As soon as I met him, I became absolutely enamored with him.

"I didn't see him again until I was seventeen. And he hadn't aged a day and didn't remember me at all, but I was okay with both of those things. It meant I was catching up to him. He was out for a few weeks that time...I don't know what for or why, but he was. We were deployed on a mission together in that time frame. And...he let me have him." The deep breath she took was violently shaky, and betrayed everything she felt deep inside of her, and T'Challa suddenly felt like he was intruding upon something sacred and private that he ought not be seeing.

"Neither of us knew what love was, but we knew what basic attraction was. For just a night-not even, it barely lasted a few hours-we felt human again. But of course, we were found out, separated. We each thought the other had been killed. But we came and went in and out of cryo, never at the same time, and eventually, they took everything from him. With no memories at all, I was lost from him, and I tried not to take it personally the two times he shot me." T'Challa might have imagined her shoulder twitching here. "But it stung all the same."

T'Challa could only imagine.

"The point is...I've been there. I've fought my way out on my own. I know what he needs to do, and how. I just hope he can learn from my experiences.
I...I hope I've done the hardest parts for him. It seems like the least I can do for him after giving up on him all those years ago."

Never once during her speech had she met his eyes. T'Challa allowed her that, leaving nothing of judgment or offense in his voice as he told her, "You did not give up on him. You moved on from what you thought was lost in order to save yourself. You were deceived, both of you, in so many ways. That much is not your fault."

Natasha looked for a few moments like she might argue. But even as her mouth twisted and her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed and her gaze shifted and her foot bounced where her legs were crossed...she did not say a word. T'Challa let her be. Whatever she was working through in her own brain was hers and hers alone. If she chose to say more, he would listen, and if not, he would not press. Not now. Not when they were both already reeling.

"Please tell him I'd like to see him again."

He let her disappear. He tucked the folder away out of sight and tried to put it out of his mind. In a few hours, when he was back in his own quarters, he could set aside some time to truly process what had just happened. For now, he would gently package it up and set it aside and focus on the next person he had to visit. Perhaps he could even glean a few more answers.

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In contrast to the last hour, this scene was miles more peaceful, T'Challa decided. Even if the subject of it was arguably the most tumultuous of them all. None other than Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes sat on the banks of the stream that ran through the village, a handful of children clambering around him shrieking wildly as they played, some of them tugging at him to try to get him to get up and play with them. With his hair tied back and clothed in their own garb, the ruined remnants of his horrifying prosthetic arm wrapped in beautiful fabrics, he looked almost harmless. As T'Challa approached, yet unnoticed, one of the young boys pulled one of the ties from Bucky's hair, letting some of it fall free across his shoulders. He was speaking in Xhosa, and T'Challa had no idea if Bucky understood, even though he smiled so warmly it could have erased all doubt: "It's so smooth! Why is it smooth and thin?"

Bucky just gave the child another quick smile-something burdened and longing, but the child couldn't see that yet-and pulled the other tie free with fumbling fingers and a few winces that suggested he hadn't had much practice with both hands, let alone with just one. And then two more of the children came over and gleefully began to braid sections of it, and T'Challa could only wonder how Bucky's hair had managed to grow so fast.

T'Challa retreated, giving them their moment; he spoke briefly with Unathi, the wiry woman with impressive strength of both body and will whose children currently gallivanted around the former Winter Soldier. She had agreed to take him in and aid in his recovery, and had convinced Bucky himself when he made a single attempt at protest and she stomped her foot at him, seized him by the arm, and hauled him off with an astonishing ability to make herself deaf to English when she wanted to. He had been doing quite well, she reported, but he was still very distant. The children helped break him out of his own mind sometimes; she thought it was their innocence and purity that convinced him to engage with them. The theory was that they gave him hope and made him feel more like a protector and an ambassador rather than a murderer.

Thanking her extensively, T'Challa went back to the river to find the sun beginning to sink over the horizon and the small pack of children dwindling. Every now and then, one of them would call back to Bucky; the way they spoke to him made T'Challa beam almost as brightly as when Shuri had told him that she'd figured it out and could help him. The White Wolf, they called him: and it was fitting.

Bucky must have heard him, or seen him this time. Or maybe he'd heard him and seen him before and simply not acted. But now he stood up, combing his fingers through one of the last remaining braids, and gently extricated himself from curious hands in perfect Xhosa. Because of course he spoke it. "You look well," T'Challa started, inclining his head in greeting. Something about it made Bucky stop a few feet away, looking like he wanted to smile but had suddenly forgotten how again.

"It's peaceful here," Bucky said after a short intermission of quiet that the crickets and the burbling stream filled for him. "It's simple. It helps."

T'Challa knew exactly what he meant. "It is a different way of life," he agreed, clasping his hands behind his back and taking very slow, obvious, deliberate steps towards Bucky. His approach was met with stoicism; taking it at face value, T'Challa nodded once ahead of him, and Bucky took the invitation and fell into step beside him. "I find that it is well-worth coming here every now and again to allow myself to breathe."

They fell silent again; T'Challa was patient. Bucky would speak when he was ready, and not a moment before. This, he had learned the hard way, but very quickly. For now, they had the swish of their feet through the grass and the trickle of the stream and the clicking and chirping of the insects and the gentle stomps and clumps and snorts of the various animals in the vicinity moving around. A soft breeze occasionally wafted across the air, bringing with it the scent of dry grass and the lingering heat of a warm day.

"I don't really know how to breathe anymore."

As predicted, the waiting game paid off. It was the best one to play with Bucky. "It's so beautiful here...it doesn't feel real. I keep waiting...to blink, and have it all vanish. I hold my breath, waiting for the electric to stop, and the hallucination to end, and the pain to start again. I sit, and I wait, and I'm numb, because I don't know how to feel anything anymore."

T'Challa continued to wait. The conflicted look on Bucky's face told him that he wasn't done yet, but also didn't know how to continue.

"The only thing I know now...is fear. Fear that...I'm going to hurt someone. Fear that none of this is real. Fear that I'm going to wake up, and they're going to be laughing at me. Fear that they'll take him away again."

T'challa didn't have to ask. The way Bucky's voice broke answered it so plainly it was agony.

"But I'm the one who sent him away. And that's what...I don't get it. Why did I do that? He would have just...dropped everything to stay. It's what I want. It's what he wants, too. So why couldn't I...just..."

Here, Bucky finally stopped walking, and T'challa knew that he was finished.

"Sergeant Barnes-"

"Bucky. Please, God, it's Bucky."

"Bucky." Softening, gentling, T'Challa let his voice be quiet where Bucky's had been rough and gravelly with the depth of emotions he'd long forgotten how to process. He remained within arm's length, but made no move towards Bucky. He'd found out, the hard way of course, why that was a bad idea. Bucky either lashed out from terror or shut down from fear. Neither were ideal reactions. "I think that you don't quite trust yourself still. And I do not blame you-there are horrors in your past that few can even comprehend, and none can truly imagine. Healing comes with time, though, and I believe that, with enough time, anything is possible."

He still didn't look convinced. Staring out over the falling sun, the vibrant sky reflecting over his skin that was finally starting to gain some color back and make it look even warmer, he still looked so conflicted and so confused and in such pain. "Time...and perhaps a bit of help." Here, he finally succeeded in ensnaring Bucky's attention. With blue eyes suddenly turned to him, T'Challa added, "I have come across some new information today. I believe it will be beneficial to us."

"And...what about...?"

"Bucky, I am not concerned about you hurting anyone else. Shuri has removed your triggers, as you have asked for. Now, you must conquer your fear. And that is something only you can do."

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Standing outside the operating theater, staring through the one-way window over the surprisingly-PG scene within, T'Challa was, nevertheless, perturbed. It could have been anything: concern over anesthesia dosing and the potential for their patient to wake, worry over the procedure itself being successful in every aspect, dread for the recovery period which could go any which way. Or it might have been residual anxiety he was picking up from the hulking blonde man standing next to him quivering with nervous energy.

Steve had insisted upon being there. He'd been in Wakanda a week, and already, Bucky seemed like a different man. The tranquility he had lived in for a few weeks with the Water Tribe was wonderful, and had aided him in his recovery substantially. But it was time to push, always push, to ensure stagnancy and complacency did not take over. T'Challa had started pulling Bucky back into the city, and back into modern life. There were good days and bad, and T'Challa had witnessed more panic attacks than he'd ever wanted to in his life. Overall, though, there was progress. And so he'd finally managed to convince Bucky to reach out to Steve.

Predictably, Steve had arrived in Wakanda roughly half an hour after contact had been established. Watching him greet Bucky was something that T'Challa felt he would remember forever: the warmth and love with which they greeted each other was equal to that which he'd seen in his own parents. Whatever these two men were to each other was none of his business, but whatever it was, they loved each other.

It was because of this love and trust, unparalleled to any T'Challa had ever seen Bucky display, that Bucky finally accepted the new arm T'Challa had been trying to give him since day one. He'd opted for general anesthesia, figuring it was better than fighting through a few more panic attacks and inadvertently hurting someone while they tried to replace the arm. T'Challa's staff had run several tests to ensure efficacy and safety of the anesthetic drugs, as well as put several safeguards in place so that, should Bucky wake, he would feel no pain and they would know immediately. With Bucky anesthetized and a variety of staff standing by just in case, T'Challa and Steve had settled in the observation room and hunkered down to wait.

T'Challa was cripplingly nervous, but he refused to let it show. Steve, on the other hand, wore his heart on his sleeve to begin with, and was so overwhelmed it looked like he was ready to jump out of his skin. This, T'Challa suspected, was what had so frequently gotten him in trouble before: this inability to sit still and do nothing and be patient. It almost made him smile: Steven Rogers was hopelessly anxious, and hopelessly in love.

"I couldn't live without him," Steve had confessed as T'Challa walked him back to the airstrip after Bucky had gone back to cryofreeze. "Please...you're probably the only person I trust with him. Please, please help him."

Now, standing here watching as a team of the very best doctors Wakanda had to offer set to wok removing the remains of the old arm, T'Challa could feel echos of that concern and desperation coloring the air. Unsure of what would put Steve at ease, not knowing him like he'd grown to know Bucky in the weeks spent visiting him, T'Challa opted for the same approach and figured that, if worst came to worst, he'd tried and he'd learned. "You have nothing to fear." Voice calm, body neutral, expression impassive. Nothing to give Steve the slightest reason. "I would trust them to replace my own arm. They are skilled, they are gifted, they are compassionate, they are brilliant. He is in excellent hands."

Beside him, an audible, hard swallow. Steve's eyes flickered to the x-rays displayed on various screens around the room. Neither of them could hear the monitors beeping in the room, but that fact that all of the numbers were still displayed in blue, green, and black and there were still wavy lines across all of them seemed to be good signs. "What if..."

"Ah, too late for the what-if's, Captain!" T'Challa scolded, bemused. He was able to look away from the first bit of blood to flash Steve a quick, reassuring smile. He couldn't draw Steve's gaze-the doctor very gently working at the scar tissue around Bucky's old shoulder had captured his gaze indefinitely-but at least Steve was still a few steps behind freaking out territory. "Whatever happens will happen. And until then, we will have faith."

The surgery took six hours. Steve would swear it was six years. Bucky would very seriously ask what year it was when he woke, terrified of how long he'd been out. (T'Challa did not mention this to Steve, but he'd given Bucky a little digital calendar to keep at his side while he slept. It couldn't be tampered with, and would always display the full date and time in whatever time zone Bucky traveled to, automatically updating to always be correct. He also wouldn't tell Steve that he'd gone in to check on Bucky when he'd overheard him panicking and found him clutching that little calendar like his life depended on it. It reminded T'Challa that time was a fragile illusion at best.) At least he wasn't having a full-blown panic attack. T'Challa attributed it to Steve, sitting at his bedside as he woke up and very carefully avoiding the new arm until the doctors could test how it responded to Bucky's attempts to use it while he was conscious and awake (and perhaps the expertly-engineered and administered pain medications had something t do with it, too.) One good thing T'Challa could say for Steve was that at least he listened.

The doctors kicked them all out for a few minutes while they checked Bucky's vitals and tested the arm for the first time. T'Challa knew they would have preferred to have done this immediately after he'd woken up, but the unknown factors in the equation had tempted them to gamble with Steve first and hope for a better reaction than if Bucky had woken up to strangers. Their gamble had paid off, and now, T'Challa figured he might have a fighting chance at calming Steve down.

"He is doing remarkably well." If all Steve could focus on right now was Bucky, T'Challa would play to his audience.

"I almost can't believe it," Steve replied in a breathless whisper, gaze fixed on Bucky even through the window. Bucky, oblivious, seemed fascinated and slightly wary of his new appendage as he put it through its paces. Th shoulder was bandaged for the time being, as the doctors had tried to rework some of the tissue in the area to better accommodate Bucky's new arm. They'd cleaned up frayed nerves, damaged ligaments, warped muscle, and chipped bone. It would be much more comfortable now, they'd explained, and they'd also made a few last-minute adjustments to the arm itself to make it a truly perfect fit. Watching Bucky use it seemed to support the doctor's reports, but Steve couldn't look away anyway. "It's been...a month? Roughly?"

"Less," T'Challa corrected with a bit of pride. Steve said nothing; T'Challa let it sit for a moment before he added, "he said the same thing."

Here, he managed to draw Steve's gaze, liquid and positively swimming with worry. "What did he say?"

"That he couldn't believe it." At Steve's deepening confusion and continuing wordlessness, T'Challa elaborated, "he feels like it isn't real sometimes. That he'll blink, and it'll all vanish." Shrugging, turning away, T'Challa felt the rest of the conversation wash over him, and knew that it wasn't to be shared. Steve would know, though. And understand. "It is to be expected. After so living so long immersed so deeply in a lie...it can be quite difficult to reorient oneself to reality again."

"If anyone can do it, he can." The conviction was so inspiring that T'Challa found himself needing to believe it. "He...he has been through so much...done so much...and every time, I said to myself, 'this is it. It's over. You have to go on without him, because this time, he's not coming back.' I never knew if I could...but I never found out if I could. He was always there. Telling me he couldn't do anything stupid, because...I'd taken all the stupid with me, wherever I'd gone..."

T'Challa could see it, even if Steve didn't say it. So he played the waiting game again. And again, it paid off. A shallow, stuttering breath; then: "And I really did. I was always off making dumb decisions and he just...held the whole world together. I'd be dead a million times over without him. And God I just...I just wish I could give him back even the slightest bit of what he's given me."

"I think that you have," T'Challa began, but Steve just shook his head in fierce defiance.

"He's given me everything."

They stood in silence after that. There was simply nothing more to say.
But the quiet wasn't awkward or strange; instead, it was companionable and intimate in its own way. Steve finally excused himself to grab a meal when T'Challa told him the doctors would be another few minutes. He had no idea when the last time Steve had eaten was, and he was probably calm enough at last to stomach something. In reality, the doctors were just about done: they'd reached the finest points of testing, and Bucky had gone from looking wary to looking curious and engaged, and perhaps even delighted. A part of him felt poorly about the whit lie, but it gave Steve a chance to breathe and catch a break and it gave T'Challa free reign to step in and wait until the doctors finished and left to sit down in a chair he'd pulled up to Bucky's bed and ask, "How are you feeling?"

Bucky seemed lighter overall, like getting through this had proved something to him. Like a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His eyes were brighter, and his movements not so tense. It was as if the tests had shown him that he didn't have to fear his own power anymore, nor fear the pain he'd grown so accustomed to ignoring. "Good," he responded, and for the first time since T'Challa had taken him in, it sounded genuine. "I woke up way better than I thought I would. This feels incredible. And...it helps. Having him here."

Ah, here they were: at the heart of the matter already. No point in dawdling or beating around the bush, then. Feeling the smile already creeping across his face, T'Challa simply stated, "He loves you."

Something unreadable passed over Bucky's face then. T'Challa didn't even try to analyze it. "Yeah..." And there was a hint of Brooklyn in that drawl, a spark of something rekindling in that distant gaze. "Yeah, I know."

Nodding slowly, realizing he'd accomplished quite a bit in just these three and a half minutes, T'Challa concluded, "It would serve you well to say it so plainly to him."

T'Challa knew the moment Bucky said it. Steve was sitting on the bed with him, leaning in close listening to a story Bucky was telling. Caught up in every word, clinging to every moment, Steve leaned down without thinking and placed his hand on the bed between them-and suddenly, Bucky stiffened, looking shocked, gaze whipped around like a fish on a hook to fixate on his new arm. Steve snatched his hand away as if burned, but Bucky reached after him with the metal hand that Steve had accidentally touched.

"No, don't-I can actually feel it."

They both devolved into broken sentences and breaking voices and breakable moments: T'Challa left them to it, contentment and joy rising in his hear, and made to turn and walk away, only to find Shuri standing next to him, grinning ear-to-ear like she'd just won the science fair again. "They're cute," she determined. Jerking her head once in Bucky's direction, she filled T'Challa in. "His old arm had pressure sensors, and heat sensors, and proprioception, and a bunch of other great stuff that didn't cooperate with each other. He felt everything separately. It wasn't really touch. But I crafted friendly hardware, so now, he can."

T'Challa was struck dumb by Shuri yet again. Here once more she demonstrated her limitless capability, and her endless compassion. How long had she agonized over that hardware, making it perfect, so that Bucky Barnes would felt like he'd actually gotten his arm back? How many tweaks down to the nanometers had it taken? How many hours? How much skill? And she was only sixteen. What could she accomplish later, with even more skill and experience and technology exploding in leaps and bounds around her?

He was pulled from his reverie when he heard her giggle; glancing back, he then immediately looked away again, grabbing Shuri's arm and hauling her away from the window. Apparently Bucky had taken his suggestion quite seriously, because he and the good Captain were entangled in a desperate kiss so deep that they couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. Shuri, apparently, thought this was the best thing to happen on a Tuesday in history.

"They're sweet!" she argued as T'Challa gently but firmly marched her down the hall, insisting on giving them privacy. It was only when she frustratedly asked what other secrets T'Challa might be keeping that he gave pause. He certainly wouldn't be saying anything to her about it all, but it definitely made him think. For now, though, he needed to give her an answer, otherwise she would bother him for the rest of the month.

"Well...I never did tell Umama and Baba what the big thump was."