Eyes of Fire | Bucky Barnes

6

Uxolo hadn't been looking for him for long.

She'd allowed him to be by himself for a while, acknowledging but not quite finding it appropriate to imagine the confusion and disorienting feeling this whole thing had probably caused.

She was proud, weirdly enough. Proud of Shuri for all of the work she'd done, and efforts to make sure it was complete through a variety of approaches. Proud of James, for allowing others to tinker with his brain — even if their intent was one of aid — when he'd beyond earned any defensive responses. For managing to break from his programming and dedicating himself to its complete extinction, even if he did not yet know all that it entailed. That's not to say she did either.

She found him on the outskirts of town, not too far from her own home, sat on an overturned log they kept around for the children to hide in and around, overlooking the vast field and valleys that marked the end of the city.

She approached slowly, hoping the crunch of the grass beneath her feet was enough to warn him of her impending presence. Always on the look out, this one. Always on guard.

His head was down, like always, this time focused on a familiar cup of red liquid, taking a deep and satisfying gulp of it.

Uxolo put a hand on his shoulder, stepped around him, and, unable to stop herself, pushed in to wrap him in a brief hug.

While she should've considered it a mistake, seeing the way his eyes grew utterly blank and body stilled to the point of not even breathing, the slight movement of his torso to try and better accept her simple show of affection showed her it was okay. For now.

And slowly, slowly, James relaxed.

She pulled away from him with a smile.

"Keep your chin up." She said as means of introduction. She sat beside him and tipped her head up slowly, as if mirroring what she wanted him to do. "You have no reason to look down, James."

"You know, I tried, but I still don't understand." He said. His voice was hoarse, like it hadn't been used in days. "Why have you been so kind to me?"

"Have you given me any reason to be anything but kind?" Uxolo proposed, breathing the words out carefully.

James didn't think it was appropriate to explain all of the reasons why she could and should have been mad at him, should have detested his sheer presence in her country. He didn't even have the time to, because her simple touch on his shoulder offered enough to reduce his uncertainty.

"My people..." Uxolo started slowly, settling into the space beside him and overlooking the same field as he. "We know what it is like to be in shackles."

Bucky turned away from her, eyeing the valleys in which small animals hid, and the hills where the predators went searching. If he looked far enough, he could see into the forest beyond, shielding the country that had taken him in.

"In 1619, a ship that had 20, or more, Africans on board arrived on the coast of Virginia. They were offloaded and sold." Uxolo's hand absentmindedly trailed along the traditionally decorated cloth of her dress, "My ancestors and tribe mates were among those people. Ukuzithemba Kwangaphakathi and Uthando L'wangaphakathi."

"They were one of the lucky ones, if you can consider that lucky, who made it to land. They lived as slaves for years, notes of our history and culture passed for generations. Until Ukuphelelwa Lithembawangaphakathi."

Uxolo said the name as if it were a prayer, each syllable so specific and strong, so warm. As if he were equal parts folktale and family; Bucky supposed both were true, to some degree.

"He'd gotten so desperate that he tried to come home. He hadn't been the first to try, but the only one to go this far."

Bucky had heard, but had never thought. Had never considered it. As he watched her run a careful hand down her own arm, pointedly marveling at the strength of her skin, of within, he knew.

He finished off her phrase, "Bleach."

Uxolo nodded, laughing just to keep from crying. "If you could even call it that. But it worked. They snuck onto a boat, one they'd heard would be returning to a tribe a few miles north, and came home under the mask of a trader. They made it back to Africa, and slipped out of sight. Only to find that our tribe had been destroyed, and they were the only remaining member of it in Africa."

She motioned around, hands faced palm up,

"So they came here. To Wakanda. The young king, at the time, provided aid, when he shouldn't have. When tradition and rule essentially forbade it. He traded gold and silver for the all of the enslaved they could afford at the time."

Uxolo reached up slowly to grasp at something around her neck, and it was only then that Bucky noticed she wore a necklace. The tiny symbols of it he couldn't make out, less due to limitations of his vision and more due to his inability to understand the language, but she clung tightly to it.

"And now I carry this story with me, in my heart and on my shoulders." She looked down briefly at it before looked back up, heaving a heavy sigh. A strong, resolute one, but a sigh nonetheless. "I owe this country my life. And that of everyone before me."

Uxolo twisted to face him so quickly with eyes as bright as the sky above them, and said gently, "So you and I — you much more than I — share something few, if any, would be able to understand."