The White Wolf and the Golden Jaguar

"How do you like this design?" Shuri said, interrupting the silence of almost three hours.

James had been reading the Lord of the Rings, he had been amazed when Erik told him that JRR Tolkien had made many additions to the series. But N'Jadaka was pretty sure the version he was reading wasn't in English, or any language the Prince understood for that matter. And well, he'd just been pretending to scroll on his phone while studying the other two in the room. It was more to keep him entertained than to collect any real information. The princess was like an open book and by no means a threat to him. And the man gave away nothing unless he wanted to, he wasn't just a closed book but a locked one.

The other man studied the design for a few minutes, muttering to himself about the features on it before saying, "It looks good. How functional is it?"

"Do I look like a joke to you? It's fully operational. One hundred times better than your other one. Your old arm was advanced for the rest of the world but not for Wakanda. The advancements were unnecessary and all on the wrong things, the grafting was the first of it's kind but horrible barbaric. No offense but it was a disgrace to technology. A lot like the Starks, first of their kind, over the top with advancements but ethically terrible."

"Slander that arm all you like, it's nothing but bad memories to me. Nothing emotionally significant, nothing positive anyway." Bucky said.

With a nod Shuri continued, "The shell of your arm made completely out of vibranium, with vibranium wiring and sensors. It has synthetic nerves so you can feel sensations with it, heat, cold, touch and even pain sensors. You can turn them off if you want, if somehow the arm gets damaged you can turn off the sensors so that you don't feel the pain. It has built-in fully functional kimoyo beads that can be accessed in your wrist panel, that can open on command. The kimoyo bead can run diagnostics on your arm to look for problems and catch them before you feel the effects of them. The kimoyo beads will run biometric scans on you to assess your health without any doctors. It also has a tracker in it that is kept inactive unless you or I trigger it. All information can be accessed only by you and I, and it's all kept under extremely protected." Shuri answered with a smile.

"Sounds amazing." Bucky said, nodding while still studying the schematics.

♡♡♡♡♡

The next time N'Jadaka encountered James Barnes was two weeks later on a trip to the Water Tribe. He had crossed paths with Shuri on his way back to the palace after he finished patrolling his sector of the border. The young scientist had grabbed his arm and pulled him along with her, saying that as a prince he needed to interact with the people more. Which was true but as a former black OP, socializing wasn't something he was used to, or enjoyed. Not that it mattered to the princess, what she wanted she would make happen.

She had dropped him in the middle of the street and left to speak with the tribe's elder. The prince gradually made his way to the market. Venders greeted him and offered their goods, and he bought something from every third vendor. It was good to show that the royal family supported their people. With buying from every third vendor, everyone could see him monetarily support the tribe.

The next vendor he stopped at was an older woman selling a large variety of fruits and other snacks. He picked up some of his favorites, placing them in the wooden basket he had bought from the first vendor. He was walking into her stand when he spotted James Barnes.

He wore the traditional clothing of Wakandan tribes. While Erik prefered more modern clothes like the princess, the other man seemed to enjoy the traditional clothes. Instead of being the color of a tribe, his clothes were black, white and silver.

Being in a rather good mood, the prince shoulder bumped the guy and greeted him. "Hey, what brings you to the River Tribe?"

"I live here. Why are you in the River Tribe?"

"Princess dropped me off to interact with people, she says I don't talk to the people enough." He answered honestly.

"I've never seen you out here before, so you probably don't interact with the people enough. It's a great place to be." James answered, looking through the bin of plums.

N'Jadaka was about to respond when a group of small children ran past him, straight for Barnes.

"White Wolf! White Wolf!" The children exclaimed in Xhosa, surrounding James.

He picked one of them up with his arm, spun the child around and did the same with the other four children. They all giggled as he did it and the prince didn't think he'd ever seen the guy this happy. To be fair, he had only seen the guy once but there was about as much mirth in his face as a block of concrete.

"How did you all find me so quickly? I've only been away from my house for twenty minutes!" James asked the children, speaking fairly perfect Xhosa. Another surprise, he wasn't sure how long the man had been here but the language was by no means easy to learn.

"You are the only one who looks like you here-"

"- we could find you anywhere!"

"And what if I do this?" James asked and flung the covering he wore across his shoulders over his face.

"You're the only one who wears silver!"

"You're all so smart, I guess you could just find me anywhere." he said with a chuckle.

"Children, leave the White Wolf alone." Their teacher said, not unkindly. It looked like this was a normal occurrence.

"It's fine, I don't mind, really. They're a bunch of sweet kids." James assured her.

"Well, I'm glad they're not bothering you. Come on children, we have things to do." The woman replied with a smile.

The children left from around James and walked back to their teacher. She looked surprised to see Erik, but smiled warmly and waved at him. "Say hello to Prince N'Jadaka, children!" The teacher instructed the kids.

They all greeted him, some of them butchered his name but he couldn't expect too much from a bunch of children. He smiled at them, and gave each one of them, plus their teacher, a fruit from one of the bins close to him. The teacher tried to protest but he assured her that he wanted to give them something. A part of changing the idea that people had of you was doing kind things unprovoked or with reason.

When the teacher and the children were gone, he looked back at James. He was looking at some of the dried fruits and nuts covered in chocolate, and the dried vegetables that were seasoned and sometimes roasted. He threw an assortment of snacks on top of the almost already full basket of fruit that was placed on the floor.

"What's with all of the food? You know it won't go anywhere if you don't buy all of it right now, right?" He was just messing with the other guy, not actually caring how much food he bought, the guy could buy out the stand if he had enough money for it, for all the prince cared. And judging by the smirk on his face, James knew it.

"I have a really fast metabolism, the meals I eat are processed relatively quickly from when I eat them. Snacks in even less time. I have to eat a lot to keep myself healthy." Bucky explained, moving over to look at some more snacks, brushing his hand over the packages.

"What kind of crazy metabolism do you have?" The prince asked, while before he was just looking for conversation, now he was just curious.

"Super soldier metabolism." James answered smoothly, tossing another package on top of his basket. The basket was truly filling up now.

"I thought there was only one person who got Erskine's serum." The prince said.

"There is only one person who got Erskine's serum, I got a different kind." James was still calm but N'Jadaka could tell he didn't want to talk about the rest of the story, his shoulders were tense and it was obvious that he was forcibly keeping his voice calm. The guy didn't want to talk about the story behind him getting the serum, he could respect that.

"I'm guessing this is a part of the stuff you don't talk about." James nodded, and the prince nodded with him. "So, which of these do you recommend?" He asked, waving his hand at the assorted snacks. James smiled gratefully at his obvious attempt at a subject change.

"All of them really but..." and James explained the differences between the snacks and which ones he preferred over the others. The prince couldn't help but watch him with a smile.

◇◇◇◇◇

After they had finished up at the market, the two of them had ended up walking into the residential part of the village. It was in the residential areas that the two of them were greeted happily by the people of this area of the Water Tribe. Most of them were more excited to see James, than him if he was being honest. It seemed like James was very popular around here.

The two of them made their way past the houses of the majority of the area's residents, past the farms and to the tree line. Not too far in front of the tree line there was a hut.

It was like every other hut in the area, though not as spacious as the ones made for families but two people could easily live in it. Especially since houses in Wakanda seemed to be more for sleeping and eating. For the average Wakandan being inside the house took up very little waking time. The whole country was alive during daylight, whether it was working, school, or everything else you could imagine, it was probably done outside the house. Unlike many more advanced countries, Wakanda put a large emphasis on being outside during your day. Not like it surprised him much, but Wakanda was every bit the paradise his father made it out to be.

Winding from far off where the bulk of the farmlands were, the river made its way around the back of the hut and then into the forest. James kept moving towards the house and Erik kept following him. There wasn't much else he wanted to do if he was being honest. And it would definitely be odd for him to turn around when he was only a few hundred feet from his destination.

When they got to the opening of the house, James shouldered the cloth that hung over his doorway and walked inside. There wasn't much to see inside the place, a rather large bed pushed to the side, a table with four chairs, a shelf against the wall that seemed to contain all of James things, a chest at the end of the bed that was probably filled with clothes and a kitchenette.

The kitchenette had what could only be called a semi-fridge, that was probably powered by Shuri's tech. It wasn't as large as the standard fridge he was used to, from the States and his place in the palace but wasn't small enough to be considered a mini-fridge, it went up to James's waist. N'Jadaka has seen some of the different tribelands but most of them didn't want one, he knew from being around they were available to everyone. There was also a wood-burning oven and a woodburning stove top in the kitchenette. It seemed that besides the semi-fridge, the man prefered more traditional aspect of Wakanda.

James walked over and started putting his fruit and chocolate covered snacks in the fridge before moving on to put everything else in the cabinets. James didn't say anything while he was doing it, and the prince didn't try to start a conversation. There'd be enough of that eventually. The other man had a routine, it seemed. The fruit, then snacks, whatever trinkets he had bought and then the clothes. After James had sorted through everything, he grabbed one of the snack packages and looked up at Erik, signaling that he was finished and now the prince had his attention.

"So, the White Wolf, huh?" It seemed a good enough place to start.

"Yeah, someone came up with it in the village. Probably one of the kids and it just caught on. Better than what I used to be called and it's better than the name of a deadman." James explained before taking the open package and shaking some of the food into his mouth.

"And that's where the color scheme comes from?"

"Yeah. Silver, white and black seem to be a good enough match from a white wolf. Everyone says it should be more colorful, I might add in some blue eventually. But I'm in no rush." James said

"Yeah, the blue would look nice with you eyes, blue on blue." The words left N'Jadaka's mouth before he could stop it. "It's a proven thing you know, color theory and all that."

The White Wolf's mouth quirked up into a smirk, "Yeah, color theory. That's why you're staring at my eyes."

"Don't flatter yourself, it's just obvious since you're the only one with blue eyes around here." The prince laughed as he spoke.

"No flattery over here. Just a one armed guy who doesn't stop eating." James said, holding his one hand (that had a package of food in it) up in surrender.

"You like Wakanda?" The prince asked.

"You know, I've been here longer than you. And I mean two years longer." Barnes replied

"I lived in Oakland for most of my life, and I don't really like it there. You spent eighty years with whatever you don't talk about and you didn't like it. Being somewhere for a long time doesn't mean that you like it. So, do you like it here?" N'Jadaka said.

"I love it here. It's the best place I've ever lived." James answered truthfully.

"I feel the same way."

♤♤♤♤♤♤

That evening was a royal family dinner. Despite being king, T'Challa had a tendency to sit by his sister and his mother sat at the head of the table when it was a family dinner. T'Challa sat at her right hand and Shuri next to her brother. When N'Jadaka attended these, he sat in front of Shuri. He easily could've sat beside the queen but she was far too perceptive for him to feel comfortable with and he could tell that her Dora guards weren't exactly thrilled anytime he was so close to the queen. The arrangement pleased both him and the guards so he didn't mind where he sat.

It was usually the four of them, once a month there would be a dinner with the Council (which Erik avoided like the plague) but that had already happened. So when the door opened, he slowly reached for the knife in his boot to defend himself. He was the furthest from the throne in monarchical succession and so the Dora were to secure him last. But the person who entered was not a perpetrator, far from it actually.

"White Wolf, I didn't know you'd be joining us tonight." The queen said, smiling warmly.

"I wasn't planning on it but I realized it didn't look too appreciative when I turn down the dinner invitation every time. Just being in the city and palace with so many people isn't where I'm the most comfortable."

"I understand, we are glad to have you. And we know you are appreciative of what we've done, not attending dinner does not change that." The Queen responded.

"Thank you." And Bucky took the seat between the Queen and the Prince

The dinner went along smoothly, and the way that the White Wolf and Prince N'Jadaka smiled and laughed with one another, the Queen had the feeling that she would see the two of them around the palace much more often.