Ava wiped the sweat from her brow, taping the last box of things from her house. All that was left to pack up was Zuri's room. She looked over at the doorway, letting out a shaky breath.
"You okay?" Bucky asked her. His hair was tied up in a bun, and sweat beaded around his forehead.
She nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay. I just... I haven't really gone into that room in a long time." She mumbled, grabbing a few empty boxes and the tape. "I know I can't keep much of his things... I'll give it to Shuri to use for some of her outreach programs, see if any kids might use his clothes or his bedding."
"That's a good idea." He smiled softly, grabbing a few bags for things to be thrown away. He waited for her to go into the room first, then he followed and looked around. "Well, well, well. Look at that." Bucky grinned shortly after walking in. He went to the nightstand and picked up a framed photo of a young Ava, from when she was about ten years old.
Ava looked over at it as Bucky chuckled and her eyes widened. "Throw that out!"
His brows furrowed and he shook his head. "No way. I'm keeping this." He smirked at her and put it into a box. Ava rolled her eyes, opening up Zuri's closet. She grabbed armfuls of clothing and robes and stuffed it into bags, working quickly so she wouldn't give herself the time to change her mind. If she stopped now, she knew she would second guess herself and that wasn't what she wanted to do.
Bucky went to the bed, grabbing the blankets and sheets and put them into bags, as well as the pillow covers. After packing those up, he looked under the bed to see if there was anything under there to pack. "Jesus." He muttered, reaching under and pulling out a large, vibranium knife. "Your dad liked sharp things, huh?" He asked and stood up, showing Ava the blade.
She turned and glanced at it, smirking. "That's not a knife, this is a knife!" She said in her best Australian accent, giggling a little afterward. Bucky's brows furrowed as he looked at her quizzically. "It's from-" She paused, realizing he didn't understand the reference. "Never mind." She sighed. "He did like knives and spears, though."
"Right." He nodded, putting the knife into a box. It wasn't long before the entire room was packed up and everything was ready to be moved. "So, how to we pack all of this over to my hut?"
"We aren't a savage nation, Bucky." She chuckled. "We do have cars, and other tech for transport. Our ride is outside." She smirked as he blushed a little. She lead the way out, carrying a box and showed him what was waiting for them outside.
Bucky's eyes widened, and he scoffed in surprise. "I thought you said you had cool tech."
"We do." Ava hummed, walking over to the giant rhino that stood outside, a large cart attached to it with a harness. "But cars don't drive well out here in the outside of the city, and nothing is stronger than the rhinos of the Border Tribe. Besides, W'Kabi owes me a favor after he helped an outsider seize the throne temporarily." She said with an edge in her voice.
W'Kabi, donned in dark blue robes, stepped out from behind the massive animal. "I know. Okoye won't let me forget what I did." He mumbled. "So I do the best I can to make up for my mistakes."
Ava nodded. "Thanks." She said. Since the Killmonger incident, she hadn't spoken to W'Kabi much. They used to be friends, and he used to be on the council. But T'Challa took him off of the council and hadn't spoken to him much either. "Help us bring the boxes out and load them onto the cart."
W'Kabi gave a short nod and glanced at Bucky as he passed by him, walking into the hut to grab boxes. Ava carried over the two boxes in her arms and set them into the cart. "He's married to Okoye." She said, looking over at Bucky. "He's nice, he just... made a wrong decision."
Bucky nodded, glancing to the hut. "Most people have." He shrugged. "I especially have no room to judge."
Ava shook her head. "You didn't have a decision to make. Hydra made it for you." She said, wiping her forehead again. W'Kabi stepped out with some boxes and loaded them, helping Ava and Bucky collect everything from inside. Ava handed him the bags of clothes and bedding along with a note explaining what the bags were for. "Take these to Princess Shuri. I'll send the rhino back to you when we are done." She handed them to W'Kabi.
He nodded and took them, beginning his walk. Ava went to the animal, climbing up onto the large saddle on it's back. "Hop up." She looked at Bucky with a smile.
"You have got to be kidding me." He deadpanned. She shook her head. If he had been told even an hour earlier that he would be riding a rhinoceros, he would have laughed. A kid from Brooklyn, New York, who was a Sergeant in the Army, and a deadly Hydra assassin, was now about ride a freaking rhinoceros in Wakanda like it was just another day in the office. He sighed, chuckling to himself as those thoughts ran through his head and climbed on behind Ava. "This has got to be the craziest thing I have ever done."
"You fought in World War II against Nazis and Hydra." She laughed, taking the reins and directing the rhino where to go. Bucky laughed, nodding as the animal walked forward, carrying them and hauling the boxes with them. "I told T'Challa I was moving. He bought my hut from me so Shuri can use it for local children in need of shelter." She smiled. "It would please Baba to know his house is being used for good. She's naming it after him. I think she is calling it Zuri's Memorial Child Center." She said the name in the native language.
Bucky smiled, having no idea what she had said. He only knew that it made her smile, so it made him smile too. "I know how to speak in many different languages. English, Russian, German, Romanian... But I don't know the language here." He said, leaning forward to look at the side of her face since he was sat behind her. "Will you teach it to me?"
Ava's lips twitched happily, and she glanced back at him. "You must be good at learning languages."
"Comes with my job." He shrugged with a small smirk.
She laughed and looked ahead again. "Sure. I'll teach you."
Bucky hummed and smiled again, and soon enough they had made it back to his hut. One of the goats bleated, and hopped around the corral. He seemed much more energetic than the others. Ava laughed softly as she got down from the rhino. Bucky followed, smiling a little bit at the goat. "I like him the most." He pointed to the bounding, black goat. He was the only black one of the group. The others were white, brown, or a mix of white and brown.
"Me too." She smiled and picked up a few boxes. Bucky picked one up, walking into the hut with her. Once everything was brought in after a few trips to and from the cart, Ava smacked the rump of the rhino and it wandered away.
"I thought we were taking it back to W'Kabi." Bucky said, watching it go.
"It knows it's way home." She smiled, grabbing his hand. "We have some unpacking to do."
Bucky glanced at her, gently giving her hand a squeeze.
**********
It only took a few hours to get everything unpacked and settled into place. By then, it was late evening and both of them were fairly sweaty. "That's it. We are living together." Ava grinned up at him. Bucky smiled and stepped closer to kiss her, but was stopped short by a knock at the door. He frowned slightly, walking through the sitting room to answer it.
"Barnes." Okoye greeted when he opened the door to her. "The king sent me to give this to you." She said, holding out a large, tan envelope. "It comes from Captain Rogers."
Bucky reached out and took it from her, giving a short nod. "Thank you." He said. It had to be those photographs. She stamped the end of her spear on the ground and pivoted around on her heel, swiftly marching away. He looked down at the envelope in his hands as he swung the door shut and walked back over to Ava across the room.
"What is it?" She asked him and peered down at it.
"A gift from Steve, I guess. He called the other day, said he was sending me pictures he found in an old Hydra base." He shrugged. He held he top of it up to his mouth and tore it open with his mouth, as he only had one hand, and moved to sit at the kitchen table. Ava followed and sat beside him as he set it on the table and pulled out a hand written letter.
Bucky, I found these when Nat, Sam, and I were taking out a gang that had seized an old Hydra base. I hope they can be of some use to you, for clarity or for keepsakes. Anyway, I assume that you might want them. There were more, but most of them were torn or burnt. These are the only ones that weren't destroyed somehow. It's like Hydra knew they were coming down and were trying to destroy evidence but got interrupted before they could finish. Must have been by the Avengers and I when we were focused on wiping them out after I found out you were alive and we went looking for you. I wish you luck on your new life in Wakanda. I'll try to visit sometime soon. All the best, Steve.
Bucky read the letter out loud to Ava. He frowned a little when he was done, and set the letter down on the table. "Alright... Let's see what these pictures are." He said. Carefully, he reached into the envelope and took a stack of pictures out that were paper-clipped together. "Oh my God." His eyes widened. Photo's of him, in Hydra. There were labels on each photograph, giving a hint as to the context of the picture. "They were documenting me." He whispered shakily, reading the different labels. "Asset continues to resist, October eighteenth of 1945... December sixteenth of 1992... Asset training, November second of 1967... Memory wipe in progress, December sixteenth, 1992... and Asset, 2014." He frowned, staring at all the pictures. All the emptiness in his expressions. The horrific pain behind his cold eyes. The torturous memories of everything he went through flashed through his head. Ava gasped softly at them, examining each picture slowly and thoroughly.
"Bucky." She whispered softly, laying a hand over his. "Bucky, what are you thinking about?"
He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "Everything they did to me. I was always in and out of cryo-freeze. It took them twenty years to break me, to finally wipe my memory and convince me I was something else. Twenty years in and out of the freezer, of electricity making my head feel like it was on fire... The whipped me, beat me... Starved me. I resisted for so long at first. But then their machines outgrew my willpower. They took away my memories, tortured me, told me to do the work or I would get hurt. But they promised I wouldn't get to die. They wouldn't let me. I was scared of being hurt more than dying at that point. I didn't get to speak. I didn't get choices. I wasn't some pampered and prized assassin. I was just their weapon, their asset." He muttered. "I did terrible things, because they told me it was the right thing to do. I didn't know anything else but pain. So I followed orders." He whispered shakily, tears forming in his eyes as he looked up at her.
She moved closer and cupped his cheeks. "It may have been your body, but it wasn't your mind." She whispered. "None of it was your fault. You are a good man." She assured him. He leaned into her touch and took a deep, shaky breath to calm down. He looked back up at her after a moment, the bad memories fading as they held each others' gaze. He broke away after a moment, looking at the envelope. "There's another stack of pictures in here." He said.
Ava let go of his cheeks and nodded, reaching into it and taking the stack out. A smile spread on her face as she looked at the pictures in her hands and showed them to Bucky. "These should cheer you up."
Bucky looked down at the pictures, starting to smile. "I can't believe he found these! These are pictures from my days in the war with Steve and the Howling Commandos. We were the best Hydra take-down and Nazi killing team in the whole war. Steve was the lead, I was his right hand man, then there was Dum-Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Montgomery Falsworth, Jacques Dernier, and Jim Morita. Jacques liked blowing things up and spoke almost nothing but French, Gabe spoke French so he translated for us. Dum-DUm was loud, but tough as nails. Montgomery was this British guy but he was super smart and helped with a lot of mission planning. Jim was our technology and gear guy." He smiled widely. "I miss those guys. All idiots, but more loyal than ever. They became my family out there."
Ava smiled as he spoke, seeing his eyes light up. She looked at the pictures again, reading the labels on them. "Sergeant Barnes, 1941. Sergeant James Barnes, 1941. Howling Commandos, Mission six. Howling Commandos, mission twelve. Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, 1945. James Barnes, mission Azzano. 1943. 1945."
Bucky pointed to the one in the middle. "Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, 1945. That was they day that I fell from the train, and everyone thought I died." He said. "Mission Azzano was the day Steve broke me and the rest of the 107th out of a Hydra base." He pointed to the other picture.
"These are amazing, Bucky." Ava smiled at him lovingly. "We have to keep these."
"I agree. Even the ones from Hydra." He nodded.
"You used to have short hair." She chuckled, gazing at the pictures. "And you didn't have a beard. I can't decide which way I like you better." She glanced up at him playfully. "I can't believe these pictures are from 1945 and earlier. You hardly look any differnt."
Bucky smiled at her. "I'm way different from the person I used to be. Steve is too. Even though we haven't aged from the ice, we have changed from everything we have gone through." He looked at the pictures again. "I used to be a womanizer, and I loved swing dancing."
"And you don't anymore?" She asked him.
He let out a laugh. "I honestly don't know. I just know that I found one woman to love, and I only want her." He said, looking at her again.
"She must be very lucky." Ava blushed, leaning closer to him.
He shook his head. "Or just the opposite. If anything, I'm the lucky one."
Ava smiled at him and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "Maybe we both are." She hummed.