The Engineer (Bucky Barnes x OC)

Chapter 2- King T'Challa is nice

The lab was great and incredibly intuitive. I had everything- all the tools I needed, all the data and computers that I needed, I even had most of the materials that I'd presumably need.

Dang. 

I had a field day with the computers, uploading my blueprint of Bryce Russell's Iron Man suit.

Bryce Russell, or Bryce Russell-Stark(she goes by "Bryce Russell-Potts" now. Apparently, she and her adopted father, Tony Stark, had a bit of an argument and she has been trying to stay away from him as much as possible, so she took on the last name of her adopted father's girlfriend, Pepper Potts. Bryce, you stubborn lady) is my best friend. She and I had been very out of touch lately, especially with her being on house arrest(something about a civil war? God, I give up on trying to keep up with her), but we'd been able to hang out a bit more after her 5-month sentence was over.

Then, I had to move to Wakanda.

As far as having a famous father and mother goes, Bryce is pretty modest. She was once infamous herself, actually- she was a hacker, called "d!s10y41". She used to break into multi-million dollar companies and blackmail them until they paid her.

Yup. That's who I had for a best friend.

But hey, to my defense, she never told me until, like, the end of high school.

I pulled up a 3D version of the suit on my monitor and started clicking around, trying to see if I could make a different version of it, sometime in the near future. Of course, I'd have to figure out what to do with it(you can't just go around selling bootleg versions of high-tech suits), but it would be fun to say that I'd done it.

When I started typing, a popup appeared on my screen. I gave it a quick glance. It read: "Select a language: English or Spanish".

I grinned. Shuri even knew that I was Latino and bilingual. I silently thanked her for not assuming that I only knew Spanish and clicked "English". Though I liked speaking in Spanish just to confuse people(try it sometime. The look on their face is priceless), English was still one of my strong suits.

You know, on the topic of being biracial and bilingual, allow my easily confused mind to take over for a minute. 

Whenever I tell people that I'm both biracial and bilingual, I almost always get this in return:

"Are you about to tell me that you're bisexual, too?"

They always laugh like it's funny. 

Hah. Hah hah. Ha-

It's not funny.

So most times my response is, 

"You're monolingual. Are you about to tell me that you're homosexual?"

Oh, and the best part?

"That's homophobic"

Honey, how can I be phobic against myself?!

I chuckle to myself and comb my hand through my short, honey blonde hair, glancing in a mirror. My emerald green eyes shone brighter than normal, though perhaps that was because of the amazing amount of sunlight behind me. 

God, I loved it there.

A knock came to my door, and it swung open to reveal Shuri and a tall man. 

"Nico, this is my brother, King T'Challa," Shuri said, introducing the man beside her. 

I raised my eyebrows and suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Was I supposed to do something formal? Do not put me in this situation without warning! Darn you, Shuri.

"We don't do any formal greetings, here," T'Challa informed me softly. 

The episode of slight panic faded. Thank God.

I nodded awkwardly, and Shuri snickered silently from beside her brother. I cast her a "seriously?" look.

"I hope you are satisfied with your new lab," T'Challa said, entering the room with a small smile on his face.

"Oh, yeah, it's really good," I replied. "You guys have everything,"

"Should you require anything, inform Shuri or me and we will see to it that you have the materials you need,"

I smiled. "Thank you, and thank you again for this position,"

"It is not a problem," T'Challa said kindly. "Wakanda is grateful to host such a brilliant mind,"

"Thank you," 

"And thank you for coming, Mr. Mullins. I hope to see you again,"

I nodded once again, unsure of what else to say. He smiled again and left, leaving Shuri and me in the lab.

"You were very awkward," she informed me smugly.

"Just trying to be polite," I replied, smirking.

"Awkward," she concluded, approaching my computer, catching a glimpse of Bryce's suit.

"What is this?" she asked, pointing to it.

"That?" I stood by it, examining it with her. "Have you ever heard of the Iron Man?"

"Duh," 

"Yeah, so... if you know Bryce Russell... this is a template of her suit,"

Shuri enlarged it, pulling apart some of the limbs on the virtual blueprint. "This is Stark tech?"

"Yeah, I think,"

She zoomed into the core of the suit, which was perched on the suit's chest plate.

"Pretty advanced, for Stark tech. Did she make this?"

"I think her Dad did, but I made some adjustments to it,"

"Wait, you know this girl?"

"Yeah, she's my best friend,"

Shuri gawked at me. "You didn't put that in your bio,"

"Sorry,"

"Didn't she just come out and confess that she was the hacker Disloyal, too?"

"...did she? I don't keep up with news,"

"Yeah!! Just last week, actually! Everyone's freaking out, because Tony Stark, in an effort to get back on her good side, said he was willing to pay anyone who sued her,"

I snorted. "Well, good luck to him. Bryce is one stubborn woman,"

Shuri laughed and replied, "Evidently, so are you,"

"Nah, I'm a bit more relaxed than her," I responded airily. "But you are,"

"I'm not stubborn!"

"You're just proving my point by denying it,"

"NO!"

"And you're at it again,"

"No, I'm- Ugh!"

I laughed, and after a minute, she laughed along with me.

"Get to work, thick skull," she joked, attempting to smack me. I dodged quickly and exclaimed, 
"No touching the hair, lady!" which only made her laugh some more.

I grinned. Who said making friends was hard?