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When Bucky sent him a message saying he'd met someone and needed some advice, Steve had presumed a couple of things. One, she was bound to be pretty, and two, she was sure to be capable of kicking Buck's ass in a fight. Bucky'd had a clear type since 1933, and Steve didn't think there was much of a chance of him being around a bunch of women as formidable as the Dora Milaje and not falling for one of them.
So Steve had shown up at the formal opening of the site of the new Wakandan International Trade Pavilion with invitation in hand and the expectation that Bucky would introduce him to one of General Okoye's lieutenants.
What he wasn't expecting was to find Bucky holding hands with the Queen Mother.
"I know what you're going to say," Bucky said, when Steve had awkwardly bowed his way through formal hellos and the two of them had volunteered to go get some drinks for the group.
"Oh, you do, do you?" Steve said dryly.
"I'm at least forty years too old for her, I don't have a left arm, I'm on an Interpol watchlist still, and what do I know about modern women anyway?"
"You don't think the fact that she's royalty is the bigger issue?"
"You think it would help if I got a steady job?" Bucky frowned. "Maybe I can scale up the goat farming."
From across the room, Steve could see Queen Ramonda watch Bucky out of the corner of her eye as she chatted with three people in American dress blues. There was the faintest cat-that-got-the-cream smile on her face. He repressed a sigh. He'd spent most of his life watching woman after woman fall for that Barnes charm. Why should things be any different now, just because Steve lived in the future and had met aliens? "You'll do fine, Buck. I'm still not sure how, but you'll do fine. She asked you to escort her tonight, didn't she?"
"Yeah," Bucky said, "but maybe it was just her being nice. Letting me down easy. She's got a big heart, Steve."
"Oh, I'm sure," Steve said. He hadn't seen Buck this goofy over someone since his ill-fated fling with Angelica Bufalino. Angie's family hadn't been too keen on her stepping out with a Jewish kid who didn't have two nickels to rub together. "Maybe you should ask her to dance."
"Been a while since I did the foxtrot with anyone."
"It's like falling off a bike." Steve slapped Bucky on the back. "Go on, you can do it."
Bucky squared his shoulders. "I can do it."
It wasn't like Steve had much experience with royal shindigs, but he had to admit that Bucky and the Queen looked the part, gliding around the floor with him in his tuxedo and her in a dress that shimmered in the tones of the Wakandan flag. He even suspected this wasn't the first time they'd danced together, what with the smooth way they compensated for Buck's lack of an arm. They looked good together.
Steve watched for a while, then headed over to say hello to T'Challa. He figured there was some rule about being sure you thanked a king if he invited you to a party at one of his embassies. T'Challa was with a young woman—his sister; Steve recognised the princess from news reports—and General Okoye.
"You have come to observe our family soap opera, Captain," T'Challa said with a sigh as he shook Steve's hand.
"You speak as if you were not the one to have begun this particular episode." Okoye nodded at the dance floor, where Bucky had just dipped Queen Ramonda. "Maybe we should have opened a Starbucks instead."
"Oh, forget Starbucks," Princess Shuri said, all innocence, clasping her hands in front of her. "There is a much more high-profile way to take part in globalisation now. Meghan Markle has already set a precedent. Americans marrying into royal families is going to be a trend, brother, do you want Wakanda to be left behind?"
"Shuri—" T'Challa said.
"And you know, if you and Nakia agreed to have a double wedding, the TV ratings would be phenomenal! I wonder if you could break the internet."
T'Challa choked, the general stifled a laugh, and Steve wondered if today would be the day he broke his promise to Sam not to get involved in an international diplomatic incident for the rest of the calendar year.
Food was served while the band took a break, and Steve wandered over to check it out. It was a buffet, mostly stocked with little morsels of things balanced on little pieces of other things. Not exactly filling for a supersoldier, but beggars couldn't be choosers and Steve discovered he liked trying new foods. (Well, mostly. He tried not to do it when Natasha was around, not after the time she'd told him wasabi was a mild palate cleanser.)
Bucky joined him, flushed and grinning. He reached out and popped one of the little squid-taco-looking things into his mouth. "You know, Ramonda says one of her second cousins is single, and so's their ambassador to France. If you're looking to take a spin on the dance floor yourself..."
"Seventy years later and you're trying to get me turned down by a better class of woman, huh?" Steve said.
"Or men," Bucky said with a one-shouldered shrug. "It's the twenty-first century, Steve. The princess told me there are even rabbis who marry fellas now. Sure, it's still a bit of a problem for your crowd, but—"
"The future's fixed a lot of things," Steve agreed. "But not my dancing."
"How bad could you be, captain?" Shuri had come up behind them without Steve noticing, arm in arm with her mother.
Steve and Bucky both winced.
"He can move his feet," Bucky said carefully. "And I suppose you could say that if that's happening at the same time as the music, then technically it's dancing."
"But that's getting pretty technical, ma'am," Steve said. "Buck was always the dancer of the two of us."
"Yes, he is quite accomplished," Shuri said, producing a phone from the pocket of her sleek white gown. She made a show out of inspecting its screen. "I found it very enjoyable to watch. Judging by the number of retweets, so did Twitter. Mother, you two already have your own hashtag. How sweet."
She held up the phone so that everyone could see part of her timeline.
hawkseye: we exile Barnes to a foreign country *one time* and suddenly he's a royal consort #sargeantqueen
RT @shuriiiii
pic.twitter.com/MkgA...
peakwidow: @hawkseye James has always had moves. #versatile #sargeantqueen
iamironman: @hawkseye @peakwidow i don't even know who to say yasss queeeeennnn to in this scenario it's great
"Oh boy," Bucky said softly. The retweet count was steadily climbing.
"Though it is clearly ridiculous," Shuri continued breezily. "You are obviously aren't Mother's consort. You're one of her harem."
"Shuri!" Queen Ramonda said sharply. "Is that any way to speak to our guests?"
"My apologies, Mother," Shuri said, lowering her eyes demurely. "I should of course have called him your concubine."
The princess was clearly a holy terror. Steve liked her.
Steve heard his own phone chime. He checked it to find a message from Tony.
think you can get a royal wedding ticket for me and pep? promise to wear my most bewitching fascinator will surpass eugenie and beatrice plus i know tons of royal etiquette b/c was a club kid in the 80s i know from queens
Steve didn't fully understand the message—Tony used to go to a nightclub in Queens?—but he was pretty sure T'Challa would want none of it happening on his doorstep. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and decided to ignore it. After all, knowing Tony Stark, he'd make sure that Steve understood it eventually.
"If this, uh, gets to be too much bad publicity," Bucky said quietly to Ramonda, "you can tell me to leave. I won't… it's not… I mean, you're you, you're real important to your people, and I know what a lot of the world still thinks of me."
"James," Ramonda said, taking one of his hands in hers. "You have nothing to apologise for. We are two adults who have chosen to enjoy one another's company, and cause no harm to anyone else in doing so."
Bucky bowed over the queen's hand, pressing a kiss to it. Ramonda smiled that small, satisfied smile of hers again.
"Oh, brother," Steve muttered.
"Theoretically," Shuri said, "If someone was to have perhaps hacked the official Twitter account of the Wakandan government and used it to troll the head of a Fortune 500 company, would that someone be grounded? Theoretically speaking."
"No," Ramonda said, arching an eyebrow. "Theoretically, that person would instead be signed up for two weeks of training exercises with the Dora Milaje. Sunrise training exercises."
Shuri swallowed. "One moment please, I must delete something."
Bucky elbowed Steve. "Glad we didn't have this social media stuff back in the day. Got into enough trouble without it."
"Getting into enough trouble still," Steve said. He elbowed Bucky back. "At least this is the good kind of trouble."
"You think?"
"Yeah, Buck. I do." Maybe this would never be anything more than a summer fling, but it was clearly good for both of them: Ramonda had someone who cared about her, no matter her title, and Bucky got to remember what it was to have permission to care about someone. The band was starting to play again. "Go on, have another dance."
Steve watched them go, and then a voice at his elbow said, "What about you, Captain? Can I tempt you?"
Steve turned to find General Okoye. "You'd have to teach me a thing or two, ma'am."
Okoye grinned. "That can be arranged."
Steve bowed to her and took her hand, and like so much else in Steve's life, this evening hadn't turned out the way he'd expected—but maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, after all.