Chapter Text
Ia.
Among her people, to be joined in soul meant a bond so deep that not even the God of Death himself could break it. Like family. Those one returns to when lost, without hope. Arms for hugging, hands for touching, lips for sealing a promise. Eyes to beseech and a voice to whisper another’s name. These connections were as webbed as the roots of trees, her father would tell her. Like the earth to which we return, or the oceans that surround us, we are as much connected to one another as we are to those who came before us and will come, after us.
But, unless Shuri could see it with her own eyes or grasp it with her hands, she did not believe it. The Gods, the spiritual beliefs of her people… none of it felt real to her. The wind at her back was not her ancestors following her footsteps; it was simply the wind. When a flower did not grow with the care that her mother would bestow upon it, it was said that it was not the right time for the seed; Shuri believed it was for lack of sunlight.
You do not believe in the ways of your people.
No. She did not. The technology she created- her kimoyo beads and the suits and her lab- she believed in that. She believed in what could be explained with science, and she knew, from her small ventures out to the world, that there were others who believed the same as her. Science was the truth, a multitude of discoveries, a way of helping the world become a better place and no prayer, or superstition, or midwives’ tale, could aid what she could achieve with the right code, the right equation, the right tools at the time of their application.
And then her father died. And her brother died. And her mother.
A family of falling cards. Another break in her heart.
And she did not know what to believe anymore.
Ib.
A little part of her wanted to believe in the Gods, then. Or the something-that-comes-after.
Witnessing her mother floating in the water… she could not imagine an after-world in which her mother lived in darkness. She could not imagine a place where her father, brother and mother were not together.
Shuri was happy to offer herself up to that darkness, in exchange for their happiness. She would offer anything for that. For their peace.
Encountering her cousin on the ancestral plane proved it. She was alone. Science could not help her and not even her family wanted her. She was a wretched, worthless thing.
So, she would keep her suffering. It was her fault. All of it was her fault.
II.
The moment his spear impales her side, she feels it, the bloom of something that spreads under her skin. It’s in her bloodstream and she cannot get it out.
It was not made with gentle ease, nor is it a declaration of war; this is a feeling that does not go quietly into the unknown of her being. This is pain and it runs deep.
She takes a breath, takes it slow, and knows that he has offered her a mark that he cannot take back. She is marked by him, in her, and sheseethes through the pain.
III.
Show them who you are, her mother beseeches her.
But, truly, truthfully; Show the world who Shuri is.
Shuri’s heart beats a wild, frantic pleading to the world. Her mother’s voice catches her in the heat of the breeze. She looks up and almost believes that what she sees along the watery planes is a trick of the light.
But, even still. Even still, that is her mother’s face in the water. Her mother is here, in the breeze, in the sun, surrounding her and loving her. Guiding her ahead, not behind, like her brother in the breeze.
Shuri closes her eyes, for just a moment. A moment.
A bloom of pain crosses her torso. The wound inside her grows. She remembers what her beloved brother told her when his surfaced across his chest for his dearest Nakia. But this is not her. None of this is her. Her body is not ready for a connection this deep. Already, she can feel the weariness of the fight settle into her bones. She is tired. That was what she is. She is made of tiredness and wants nothing more than to sleep.
She breathes out her vengeance and closes the box in her mind. Bast it all to hell. She stares down at Namor and his terrified eyes. A God, at her feet.
This God is her soul-mate.
Bast it all to hell. She is supposed to love him, but the sight of him angers her.
She is about to burn him alive.
Because she wasn’t fast enough to help her mother. Because she couldn’t save the young girl in Talokan. Because she couldn’t protect a budding scientist. Because she couldn’t help her brother, or her father. Or anyone, really.
Because she is just a useless, useless girl.
This is not Shuri. This is not who she is.
Shuri drops his spear. Because she does not want to kill.
A wound grows between them and seeps between the cracks of vengeance and torment.
She stares down into the eyes of her enemy.
And she yields.
IV.
He can taste her blood in the water.
Over his head, he hears her scream as she drags his body through the surf, pulling him deeper, deeper into the water. As though she were a child dragging a weight it could not leave behind. Dragging the weight of grief, and anger, and a darkness as endless as the ocean. Her lithe body pulls him the last few metres and the bone-deep fury of her anger, the abyss that is her grief, washes away to nothingness. Vengeance has consumed us. An offering, of peace. A heart-shaped flower, offered in the palm of her hand. I yield. I yield, he answered to her peace offering.
To you. Only you. I yield.
In that moment, his equal stood above him. To her, and her alone, he yielded.
The stinging salt of the water glitters against half-closed lids. He arches his head back into the water, his open mouth breathing in lungfuls of the dewy cold. The ripples are a caress against charred skin of his back. He is floating; she pulls him along. As though waiting for him to resist, waiting- willing- for him to move, to live. Breathe. He pulls from her grip; another wave shatters between them, turning and tumbling him over, and he cannot hear her heartbeat anymore. The arms of the ocean offer an embrace of comfort and he stretches into its teal depths. And drifts, comforted by the release of pain.
The waters surrounding the Princess quieten. But. He can feel her. Taste her. The sea that ebbs and flows around him, tastes of blood. Not his. Hers. The life inside of her body is pouring into her suit, filling the lining of the ocean.
It would be easy, now, to drag her down, to make her breathe in the suffering of his people, of the ocean and its terrible beauty. Force her Panther strength to dampen and damn itself to the darkest depths below.
But.
He can taste her blood. Under the next wave, and he can feel her slip away. Slipping further down-
Under the water.
Her body is weakening. She is drowning.
Worse, she is not fighting the water. She is not fighting at all.
I yield.
He knows the taste of her blood from the heart-shaped herb she ingested. It altered something in her genes; it contained something of his inside of it, too. But, right now, her fury to burn the world is dwindling to the desperate call of a child to its mother, its kin and tribe. Grief, so painful it lurches through his body, causes his chest to spasm, as though her grief, her suffering, was- is- his. An infinite well of loneliness purges his being; a God, brought to his knees by the potency of her misery.
There is something in the wound he gave her mere moments ago. Something vital, potent. He can feel its deadly pull drawing him through the waters, pulling him down. He closes his eyes for a moment and imagines a golden thread.
His mouth dries when he feels her torment.
A father. A brother. A mother. A longing so terrible, so brutal, to return home, to close her doors and never, ever open herself to the world again.
Another bond, then. Another one.
I yield.
She had not fully shed her girl’s body yet and was forced to grow beyond her earthly years in so short a space of time. Seconds, for the near-immortal that he is. And yet. She could have killed him, her resentment toward the world- toward him- was so strong it could have levelled cities. But. She did not burn the world. Instead, she burned him; as she should.
Vengeance has consumed us. We must not allow it to consume our people.
The bitterness of her rage, at not being able to grieve her brother. Battened down, hidden away under scientific beliefs and an inability to open herself to those surrounding her. Even though the world turned on, she is still left behind, and- oh, that hurt, that hurt. Forced to grow into a woman’s body at so young an age, as many often did during times of war. He, a God that ruled for thousands of years, defied by a mortal whose anger seared through the oceans.
He closes his eyes. Seconds, for him. As her body sinks further, further down-
I yield.
-and, in his mind, glimpses the near-smoky trail of red seeping upward from down below…
That pull intensifies, then ebbs. He will lose her. And what of it? he wonders. A mark for a mark. Her death for his people’s safety. Wakanda will not survive the loss of another Panther; there is no one left to hand the burden to. In fact, Wakanda would be his for the taking. His people will finally see the light of the sun, live without fear in a world without surface dwellers…
But.
But. She is tied to him. But.
An image comes to him. Her. Her. Her small smile of wonder at the beauty of his whole world, at the sun he brought to their darkness.
There, the water became a glittering, teal dome of splendour, a world that thrived in secrecy, away from the eyes of the surface dwellers. Her body, dressed in the clothing of their peoples. The bracelet he offered her, held in her slender hands. A peace offering and a threat. To a girl still too young.
A small, blooming ache fills his chest. Namor blinks, and in the ocean, he glimpses his mother, holding her arms out to him. She is sad. He can feel her sadness. The ocean is salted with her tears, he thinks, and he wants nothing more than to assuage her.
His people believed that the oceans hold their memories. Their bonds, born of soul and splinter.
She does not wish for death, his mother is saying. She wishes for peace. Offer her peace. For us all.
What she means: offer yourself.
When he pulls her body from the waters, he holds her as though she is made of the finest silk.
He begs the water from her lungs, covers her ice-cold body with his warm hands. They could not be anything more than an opposing pair.
But when she retches, he wraps an arm underneath her and holds her up. She curls into his bicep, her chin on his shoulder. Her body is deathly cold, made for the death it avoided, as it rests against him. She is crying, but she trying to keep the brittle sounds in and the silence yawns loud enough to rend his heart in two.
Between them, her blood runs through the sand.
A gift. A curse.
V.
Returning to Wakanda, knowing that her mother will never welcome her back, made Shuri feel… cut off from the world. Without vengeance driving her, she feels adrift, lost without a home. Alongside Nakia and Okoye, she cares for the wounded. Hours, days, later, she stands in the shower and sees the still-healing puncture wound in her side. The blood seeps through. A broken mark, not fully formed, she thinks. The edges carry feathers that are golden in colour, but the bloody mark on her body sews them to her torso. Her vision blurs with the pain of it.
She knows why it won’t heal fully; while the skin around it smooths with time, the internal damage refuses to fuse completely. She is bleeding out from the inside. Her mark throbs in her blood and it moves, dances, in her bloodstream, twain sinew and bone. It is purplish and blooms outward in soft-hewn petals of gold wherever it pulses. Sometimes, she sees it on her arm. Sometimes, it travels along her thigh and settles back between her shoulder-blades. It mutes the feathers, and the stains cause her to wince when she moves. Because of her fast healing capabilities, she bears the pain constantly. Strangely, she is not scared.
She knows what this is. It’s unrequited; he gave her this pain.
So she entrusts M’Baku with the title; it’s deserved, she thinks, and in the dark of night, she leaves Okoye and all of Wakanda behind.
They will not miss her. Not when she’s long gone.
.
.
.
She does not realise that he sees her through the glass. The slender curl of a shoulder. Her curls. The wound and the blood pouring through her patterned skin; underneath it, the mark, the golden threads of water and feather that link him to her. The steam protects much of her naked body as she tries to sew the skin together.
He stares, transfixed, by the beauty of the mark itself, as it thrives inside her body, a living, glowing beacon. He gave that to her. He gave her all of that.
There is a phantom pain in his side, and the vibranium petals in his bloodstream dance to the muted feathers in hers. But these marks on his body are not real; he simply wishes that he could belong, with her, in her. She is one of many, inside of his; he carries more than one soul mark and cannot be tied, solely, to her. This desire to be close, he thinks, stems from her fury; he wants to make her angry, he wants to see her fight.
But as he watches her, he notices the resigned slump of her shoulders. Her head falls back to the wall behind her. She holds a sewing needle between her fingers. The steam settles, and he is shocked.
She is crying. Her blood washes the floor. She is bleeding through the stitches.
This is painful. This is too painful-
He has heard of it before; but he did not think that it would happen, not like this. He would have given it with a gentle palm. Burned her skin with a kindling passion; hold her abdomen, not spear it. Not force his way into her bloodstream with the intention to kill her.
He is made for immortal beings. Never, ever, did he think that he could be made for her- human, soft, fragile. Even if thorned in barbed wire.
She is enveloped in steam and water again, and her slender frame is hidden from his eyes. She continues to sit on the shower room floor and the bloodstains are a vivid reminder that he almost, almost, killed her.
Is killing her, if the blood does not stop pouring like the ocean from her body.
VI.
Her first stop is Haiti.
She meets her cousin and knows that he will be everything she cannot. Later in the night, as she and Nakia continue to watch the flames dance into embers, she tells Nakia that she is leaving for a while.
“When will you come back?” Nakia asks. Shuri can tell that she is upset; Nakia wants her to stay a little longer. But Nakia did not stay back then, not when Shuri needed her. Even with a secret as big as her son. Shuri feels selfish; she thinks that she is right to be selfish. She saw a man she should not have seen on the ancestral plane. So, selfish she will be.
She is bleeding out from an unrequited love (or hate, or something); she is not sure what this is, yet.
There is no one out there for her now. The thought gives her comfort.
No one will miss her, when she’s gone.
VII.
It is days, weeks, later. Like the ocean, she drifts along her travels. The water washes along her spine, always. She never fully turns from the waves; he is watching her, always.
She is astounded at how much the Black Panther is needed. Shuri recedes when the Panther is around; there are times when her costume stands front and centre for two or three days at a time and Shuri does not have a moment to breathe in her own skin.
At first, she ventures around the outskirts of Haiti; in that time, she stands between rival gangs and fights with the Panther’s agility to calm the gathering storms. As Shuri, she helps the local women to open an outreach centre in a similar fashion to that of her brother’s Wakandan centres. Unlike her brother’s, Shuri’s specifically help the women to fight. With words. With healing aids. Because, as Shuri, fists do not always solve problems and she prefers the calm, the peace. She calls Ross, who helps to send medical aid and food for the families. At first, it did not quell the problems; but, slowly, it gave the women a chance to start something new, from scratch.
“What else can we do?” Ross asks her when they have a moment. She thinks that she has started a small fire and oh, but this is a better way to make the world burn, she thinks. Her mother would certainly not allow it, but here, with Ross and his crossed arms and assessing gaze, this is something that could spark a fire. They are standing among the squealing children and thankful families in Carrefour; beyond, the waters are the deepest blue.
She stares out to them.
“We keep going until we stop.”
She will not tell him when she will stop; or, that her stopping is coming, soon.
Because this is what heroes are built for, after all. Not just arrows and gunfire. In centres, with the women and children, in the fields with the men, looking to compromise, looking to build anew, looking to make the world a little bit better than it had been. She knows that this is what her brother was hopeful to achieve.
Only she is carrying his legacy until Toussaint takes over.
She looks down to her own hands as Ross begins to plan the next centre with another team. As it should be, she thinks, as she considers her next step. Her veins throb purple underneath the skin. When she closes her hands, she reaches for the wound on her side, and swallows the dryness of her throat. The blood still seeps into the parts of her body that it should not. And it still hurts. There are possibilities flowing though her veins; possibilities she is running out of time to achieve.
VIII.
In between here and there, she does not want, nor need, anyone. Even if her body (her heart or her blood or her mark or whatever) states otherwise.
As the nights turn to weeks, Shuri travels with the water. And sleeps as close to the water as she can. An offering, she thinks, just to see. If he will come.
(He never does).
IX.
(Or, she thinks that he does not come; she does not realise that his footprints wash into the waves.)
(Her body burns all the more in the mornings; she thinks it is muscle pain, but it is truly the loss of his touch).
X.
He stands over her sleeping body and watches her.
If he looks closely enough, he can see the creases in her face, the pain as she sleeps.
As she breathes, he feels the blood as it pools through her system. The bruises that bloom underneath with every beat of her human heart. He crouches down next to her cold, curled body and, while he will never admit it to her, it is the taste of her blood in his waters that brings him here, time and time again. As the fire close to her sleeping form dies to embers, he thinks that she will not last in this world for too much longer. She shivers. He can hear the slow, too-slow, beat of her her heart; it keeps a rhythm so out of tune with that of the waves that surround them.
She is dying.
This is not a soul-bond, but a curse. He is not so detached from the worlds above that he does not know what these atrophied ties are, or what they may be becoming. He has never seen one like this before; this thread that connects them is flimsy, fragile. He cannot reciprocate the mark his anger imbued in her all those weeks ago. He does not think that even he could be made of the same love that binds them. Perhaps it is a furious hatred that connects them, or a common animosity inherent in themselves.
Self-hatred in burned embers and salted wounds.
And he does not know what to do. For she would not have him. And he does not think that he could have her.
XI.
“Why are you here?”
He looks up to the woman that speaks. Namora stands alongside the water’s edge. She carries her spear and stares down at Shuri’s sleeping form with fury in her eyes.
Unspoken; We can kill her here.
Namor knows that there is much he should tell his right hand. He imagines the possibility of killing Shuri, of course; she was the reason as to the death of one of his own. But there would be no fast mercy in Namora’s killing. Shuri’s death would be slow and painful. Even more, he knows that the Wakandan Princess would not fight back.
“The Princess is dying, Namora,” he murmurs.
Namora stiffens. A beat of silence passes between them. She grins through her mask. “The oceans drink her blood.”
Namor swallows. “She is of Talokan,” he intones, slowly.
Namora blinks. Her assessment is slow, decisive. But the grip on the spear tightens.
“She is-“
To prove his point, because he knows that she would not believe him, Namor reaches for Shuri’s face, and as he does so, his arm begins to glow a golden umber. The darkness surrounding them glows with the fire that dances along his bare arm. Shuri’s face alights, and his eyes glow in gold as they drink her in.
When his fingers dance along her shoulder, the mark that throbs inside of Shuri begins to glow, an off-kilter throb. Tonight, it rests along her neck, a delicate purple. They intertwine to create the most royal of colours as they rise to the stars.
Still, she sleeps, but her brow softens. She breathes a little deeper. She glows in her sleep. She is beautiful.
A part of him, something small, infinitesimal, is relieved at the temporary ease of her suffering.
Namora would not remove her mask, but as the light between him and his soul-mate grows, he hears her near-lethal growl.
He does not watch her leave for the waters, but he knows that she will lure many, many men to their deaths tonight.
XII.
Between. This and that.
She takes iron supplements, but there’s only so much they can do. GRIOT estimates she has another month, maybe two. If she dismantles the suit, she would live for much longer; her Panther healing can only do so much before it mars her organs and body. A soul-bond is so much more stronger than she anticipated. She has tried to stitch the wound; it seals, but reopens a few hours later. In between, she sleeps. Tries to. She misses her periods; she has already lost her appetite and the blood loss makes her weak and queasy. When she wears the Panther suit, it keeps her upright, but the weight she carries on the inside pulls her down.
She is losing to the mountain and no longer wishes to fight against it. It prolongs the pain and makes the darkness more menacing.
So she takes a deep breath. And moves on.
Soon.
Soon.
XIII.
“What are you hiding from me?” Okoye asks her one night. Shuri is thankful that she cannot see her. Her body is shrinking a little and excuses the use of video feed through GRIOT’s terminal. Okoye does not miss her excuses.
Shuri tries to scoff. “Keep asking me that question and the Midnight Angel will be getting another upgrade you will not like, sister,” she murmurs as she looks out to the rolling waves of the oceans.
As she speaks, she licks her lips and almost spits out the metallic tang of blood.
XIV.
She hears that there are new Avengers on the scene, but remains off their radar. She decides that remaining outside of their circle is more important.
(Unspoken; she does not matter and, when she dies, they will not mourn her).
(Also; a small, small part of her hopes that no one will mourn her, or care).
XV.
When it happens, she is in the slums of Santiago de Cuba. The sun pours through the streets and she is stifled by the heat that rises from the tarmac. The metal and stench of the streets plague her senses. Previously, she heard rumours of a trafficking ring; children disappearing in broad daylight in public spaces. Men luring the children into little alleyways in the slums, where nothing but a misshapen shoe would be found much, much later.
Currently, she is following a little girl with long brown hair. She sees the pink of her clothing, but her sight swells in and out of focus. Because it’s been happening, a lot, Shuri pays no heed.
Not until she blinks and the child is surrounded by five fully grown men. The streets are near-silent, as though complicit in the child’s kidnapping; Shuri steps in before they take her. And she speaks.
There are families grieving the losses of their babies, she tells the men. But her voice is faltering. She swallows. Something is very, very wrong here; her heart feels as though it is beating in and out of time. She is not part of the narrative here, not fully aware of what is happening around her. She cannot hear GRIOT; she cannot hear anything except the slick turn of knives on stone, or see the leering expressions of the men as they swarm her and the child behind her.
She feels the pull. And it hurts-
“What you gonna do, little girl?” they are taunting her, but their voices go in and out of her hearing. She is losing consciousness. She is going to drop; Shuri needs to get out of here, fast. Her mouth goes dry. She breathes in-
Someone grabs her shoulder and she shoves them off. Another pulls her arm. Her head throbs when they push her. Her jacket is grabbed, pulled; she feels the snap of hot air over her shoulders when it tears. The child is running, she knows, but Shuri cannot place her. She is pushed to the ground. She is blind and cannot see what is happening, cannot get her bearings-
A tearing sound reverberates through her ears; she thinks that they have left, but then hears them laughing-
Her shoulder is bare- they’re pulling at her clothes-
Fuck, no- no-
She swallows the darkness that fogs her eyes, and her heart lurches again- she is being pulled up, down- away-
The wrenching pull makes her scream; it’s not inside her, but it’s around her, and everything hurts- the mark on her abdomen swells raw, as though someone has put a weeping iron brand to it and scorched her bare skin-
For a second, she forgets who she is; she knows that she is Shuri, but as Shuri, everything feels wrong- her neck has a hole in it- or something- was there a gunshot?- what is-
She swallows the rising bile in her stomach and breathes. Her heart is stuttering between the seeping pain of her torso and the mark that bleeds there. It hurts. She cannot breathe- she cannot-
She coughs and something wet and dark pools through her lips. The silence in her ears yawns out the noise surrounding her.
One moment, she is lying in dust and heat; the next, her body lies on a sandy beach (Playa la Estrella, she is told, later). She is still coughing, still breathing in the metal and fire in her veins, the molten lava of whatever is wrong with her (what is wrong whatiswrong-)-
And-
“Princess,” a voice calls, as though from far away, and she is still retching, the white sand stained red, pink, blossoms of dark colours on a sky so white-
“Princess,” the voice sounds closer, more urgent. She crumples forward, there is so much blood, she is made of this blood, her clothes stained with it, her hands, everything-
“Shuri!” The voice stands over her, blaring in and out of sound, and she-
Her hands leave the sand; she is being lifted up, up-
She blacks out as she is turned into a pair of strong arms. Then, everything comes back into glaring focus. She can feel the blood pool along her neck. The stench of it. Something is screaming as it pulses through her body. She does not want to hurt the person holding her, because she has been lit on fire; there is so much pain. It seethes, aching, to be felt. Only distantly, she can hear screams.
It is her voice. She is screaming through her lungs; she is dying, this dying hurts-
Her body is submerged into the waves, and then there is nothingness. Her body cools with the rising heat and she is not sure if she is drowning, if she has died. But it is quiet.
There is peace.
There is silence.
She falls into the waves.
Thinks she hears her mother’s voice whisper, “Oh Shuri, my darling. Do not go like this. Do not.”
But her mother has not been at her back the last few weeks; she has probably given up on her daughter altogether. She’s useless; worthless and longs, longs, longs for death.
XVI.
When he feels her pain, he lurches into action. His anger boils to the surface of the water as he ploughs toward Playa la Estrella. He knows there will be blood, he knows of what those men will do to her if he does not get there on time, and swears upon Chaac’s name that those men will experience suffering worse than death.
Between the laps of the waves along the shoreline, he watches her fumble as she tries to stand, her body uncoordinated and losing so much blood. It staggers him, to know how much agonising pain she must endure. He screams her name, her name alone, when Shuri stumbles one last time and crumples into the sand, a rag doll with no frame to hold it up.
Her body is so deathly cold. She is coughing her lungs out of oxygen, her body as limp as a newborn’s. Her clothes hang from her frame- he sees bruises and the rough tears in her vest, and red lines his eyes. How dare they. How dare they-
He will kill those men; worse, he will never stop cursing himself for this, for what he has done to her.
Namora screeches from behind as he orders her to kill, slowly, on sight. The battle-hardened warrior grins wickedly as her sirens rally for death.
He places a mask over her flushed and sweaty cheeks and hopes that she does not choke as they are enveloped by the waters.
XVII.
There is a hand cupping the back of her aching neck. It holds firm, but the touch is gentle.
When she comes into wakefulness, she is scared. She does not want to feel the burning rot of pain again. Her fingers curl into the comfort of the bedsheets, and another hand wraps around her wrist. She whimpers, but only because this touch is soft, and it eases the crushing anxiety in her chest.
“You are reckless,” he whispers into her ear. Oh.
Her body curls into his body. She is lying on his chest and he is so very, very warm.
He killed her mother. He destroyed her home.
But being held by him is mercy, because the pain no longer haunts her bones.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she murmurs. Because it doesn’t. That scares her. Is she even alive?
“Did they hurt you?” he asks and she murmurs a negative. If only because she truly does not know. She could not feel anything except the burn of her soul mark. His hands wrap around her waist and draw her up, suspending her mid-air. Shuri is forced to open her eyes. Blinking hurts, the edges of a migraine pooling around her temples. She finds herself looking down into his brown orbs. In his hands, she feels weak- her arms tremble as she tries to hold herself up. “Did they hurt you?” he asks again, and the near-lethal growl in his voice makes her swallow the fog in her head.
She must look awful. There are blood stains all over her body, her clothes-
What happened before she blacked out lurches back into focus; she blinks-
“There was a girl; they were following a little girl- where is she? Is she okay?”
Her voice sounds hoarse. As she takes in the room, she stills. The walls are a familiar teal colour; the water glistens and reflects the ceiling. The air feels warm as the rocks that hold the hammocks sway to and fro. There is no one in this room, but it feels as though the room has ears as her shitty voice echoes. Her panic rises, a little.
“Why are we in your cave? Where- what- the little girl-“ her voice cracks. Her head throbs and she rubs at it with a wrist- “Namor, there was a little girl, where did she go-“
“My people took care of them,” he says as he watches her panic begin to mount. She groans as she tries to piece everything together. Her head aches from the gross retching earlier; how long was she even out? How far away were they from Cuba? Were they close to Talokan? Were they even in Mexico?
“Princess-“ Namor begins to say, but she stops him.
“I was in the middle of a street and then I was on a beach-“
“We were trying to get to you- you were in danger-“
“And the girl- what about the-“
“What about you?” his voice descends even lower as he sits up, her body rising with his. His hands squeeze her shoulders. Shuri’s eyes refuse to meet his. They take in the teal and glow of the cave surrounding them. Is it her and her loss of blood, or does this place look beautiful under the glittering shorelines? “Princess- Shuri- look at yourself-“
Shuri looks at him, blinks, then looks down. Her clothes are completely torn. She had been wearing a jacket- she remembers they tore it from her body; her vest was cream and her shorts were black, but… everything is either shredded to pieces, bloodied or completely covered in dust. She doesn’t care about her clothes; yes, she knows she looks like shit and she tells him as much.
But as she speaks, his expression becomes more lethal. One second, she is being held aloft by his arms; in the next, her back is on the bed and he has her wrists pinned high over her head. The jerking movement is rough and hurts. His legs pin her waist, tight. She is sure that he growls. She is dizzy and wants to be sick and grits her teeth. She cannot move. He watches her as she watches him.
A second more passes.
Then, he leans down and rips the last of her vest clean from her battered body.
Shuri’s mouth goes completely dry. He can see everything; he can see the cuts and bruises and tears that have not fully healed yet. He can see-
She struggles. She tries to push against him, pull him out of her grasp, but it does not work. His grip is ironclad. She never wears a bra, finds it too constrictive and, also, useless, considering. But he is not looking at her; instead, he stares deep into her eyes as his entire hand covers her abdomen, just under her ribcage, where the mark- the mark, fuck the mar-
She turns into the bed. She will not scream. She will not-
The second his skin grazes the place where he impaled her all those months ago, the second he touches her-
Fire and ice and electricity burns and sears and emblazons her body. She grits her teeth as beads of sweat decorate her skin. It hurts. Her skin sizzles raw and she cries. An unrequited mark scars the body, inside and out. His touch goes through her already-battered skin; she is made to feel like a carcass dragged through sand.
“You are so reckless, Princess,” he says. “They could have hurt you so badly.”
You already are, she wants to say. She doesn’t.
He pulls away from her mark and her body goes limp. The fire dulls to embers. White and black and red spams in her eyes. “You have become so weak; if we had not been there-“
“I,” Shuri tries to say, choking on the dryness in her throat, “- am not important, Namor. That little girl is more important.”
He is not looking at the mark on her body. Instead, he watches as she tries to clear her vision. She cannot catch her breath. Everything hurts. When she finally breathes, less winded, she looks up to his eyes. “You are dying,” he states.
“She is living,” Shuri deflects between stuttered breaths. Bast, even breathing hurts.
Namor growls again as he leans in close. Bast, he is angry that she is dying? If the bastard didn’t give her this damn mark, she would not be in this place. If the bastard didn’t kill her mother- if he didn’t kill her mother-
“You are dying, Princess,” he breathes against her neck. Her heart jumps. She knows he can see it, probably hear the wheezing in her lungs all the more. His breaths move down, further, “What does that mean for you, for Wakanda, your country?”
Shuri grits her teeth. “They have a King-“
“You are the Queen.”
“I gave that title up.”
“Because you want to lose?” He fires back. He adds, “You want death?”
She stares, resolute, into his eyes when he draws back. She shivers at the coldness left behind. “My mother was the Queen, the last Queen of Wakanda in our family. I will not take her place.” Because you killed her. She stares into her eyes. Tries to convey how much pain she is in. Because he killed her. And admitting it fucking hurts.
This is not grief, nor is it bone-deep anger. This is her giving in to him. Without telling him. Bending, slightly, but not yielding; she would die first before she would ever yield. Vengeance consumed her; but her stubbornness refuses to quell to his demands.
Her mother would string her up for this. Her mother would most likely condemn her for this because Shuri had to show them who we (you) are. While bestowing mercy was one thing, needing him like a fish needed water, or the moon craved the sun, was terrifying and she couldn’t… Shuri could not allow herself to let him think that.
Her death would be preferable to her body needing the contact of her enemy.
Namor swallows and his mask falls, a little. He breathes, once, twice. Then allows his eyes to fall to her neck, her bare chest, her waist. “And what if I were to take you right now? Take advantage?” He swallows. As if her body is even close to desirable; Shuri knows how grotesque she looks now. She’s barely skin, never mind bones. Namor forces his eyes all the way down along her semi-naked body- “What then?”
Death would be better, she thinks.
Please don’t. Please do not do that.
It is a small plea, but she will not beg.
She closes her eyes, then opens them. She says nothing. Her heart is beating, wild, inside her chest. Slowly, softly, he lays a hand down to where her heart beats, feeling through the heat of her skin. It does nothing to calm her. She tries to cave her chest down into the bed, as if to escape (resist?) his touch, but he follows anyway. She is scared. She is shaking and scared. She does not want this.
She wants to die. She wants to die, right now. Shuri refuses to look away from his face, but she is this close to breaking into all the fragments she has become. Whatever of the Panther that traverses her veins is the only thing keeping her shattered body alive right now. But this isn’t surviving; even if he were to hurt her more, to take her body like those men wanted to, these were her final steps toward death.
She wanted the blade. A deep wound. A quick, easy death.
“It would take nothing for me and my army to infiltrate Wakanda,” Namor whispers, as a single finger traverses down between her breasts. There is nothing in his eyes. She cannot fathom what he thinks. His finger swirls around her mark- she flinches; she would endure anythingif he didn’t touch that mark-
Then he pulls away. His unbinds her wrists. He sits back. Assesses her.
“You have to consider yourself also,” Namor murmurs. “You are just as important.”
“You do not have a mark,” she whispers. She tries not to make a show of covering herself up. He continues to stare at her. She sits back, because he will not move from her waist. “If you do not have a mark, then the mark you gave me remains unrequited and, eventually, I die.”
His body stiffens.
“Soul bonds only survive when made between two individuals. The mark happens at the same time, sometimes there is a lapse of time between, but very rarely,” she says, remembering what her mother once told her. “They are given out of love, passion, desire. They bloom between two individuals who see one another as equals, with respect.”
What she means; you gave this to me in hate. There is nothing here, between us.
What she means; I crave your touch and suffer without.
“I’m estimating that I have a few weeks left before the mark kills me. Whatever way you gave me this mark, it travels through my body. The Panther’s healing capabilities are prolonging my life, but, soon, the healing will atrophy my internal organs. So, my life does not matter; that little girl’s life matters.”
He does not speak, not for a long time.
Then, he grabs her. Forcefully. His fingers bruise her skin more, his hands shadows to where the men had grabbed her- her shoulders, her wrist… She does not scream. She whimpers.
Shuri tries to pull away from him, but her body will not let her. She whimpers again; Bast, she is scared of what he will do to her, what the men did not do to her- she cannot fight or hold her own here-
A weak, useless, useless girl-
Her head throbs and, as he pulls her into his arms, she stops. She lets her arms drop, because there is no use in fighting. No use in trying to make this painless. It’s as though her mind is pulling her from this moment. As though she knows what will happen and she is so scared that she simply does not want to be here, anymore.
(Here; in his arms, or here; on this earth).
“Make it quick,” she whimpers. “Please, make it quick-“
“Chaac, you stupid, stupid child,” he seethes into her ear. He pulls her body into his. His arms wrap around her shaking shoulders, covering her with his own body. “You are important,” he tells her.
“No, I am not,” she whimpers, voice full of tears. “I am not important. I am not.” Her tears are spill over. “Just do it, just get it over with-“
“I will not,” he murmurs into her ear. “I will not make you suffer.”
His hand caresses her hair. A single finger draws down the nape of her neck, curls along her shoulder, and returns to her hair. The touch is comforting, reassuring.
Eventually, eventually, she falls into an exhausted sleep, with his arms holding her, her head nestled into the crook of his neck. She does not ache anymore; the numbness has settled deep into her body and will not let her go.
XVIII.
Not important. Not important.
Namor watches her as she sleeps. Shuri is silent, still. She doesn’t move. Her tears have not dried. Her breaths rattle in her chest; he watches as it rises and falls. She looks frail, smaller than before. Her fingers rest against his bicep, as if her body longs to reassure itself that his is still close by.
He knows a little of what this connection means; she needs him, always. And he, somewhat, needs her. Even if he cannot carry a mark, like she does. These are small mercies; he can feel her pain, but she cannot feel his.
Although they do not regard themselves as through that narrow and straight understanding of love, they admire and respect the small tie of string between them. Even if the bond only seems to run one way, there is another string, smaller, coloured gold, that tangles their hearts and souls. It is not decorated like their traditional soul bond; it is the string of the Gods and his has, undoubtedly, become one with hers.
And while she suffers, his heart breaks for her. Burn the world, he once wanted. Now, he simply wishes to burn himself.
XXIX.
Time… moves forward.
Shuri spends her days in his cabin above water. She grows used to the teal and blue colours of her new home. He reassures her that, when she is ready, she can return to the surface world. This is an olive branch; she is grateful for the offering and takes it with both hands. Neither Namora nor Attuma visit; she thinks that, when Namor leaves her for brief stretches of time, it is then that they rebuke him for keeping her here.
She thinks that the silence and space is their disapproval.
The mark calms and, with time, she feels as though she can breathe again. She isn’t driven to fight or to make amends between people. She sheds the skin of the Panther, for a while. And sleeps through the days, or nights. Namor refuses to tell her how long she has stayed in his cabin.
The first time she witnesses her reflection in a mirror, she is shocked. Her face is marred by sickness; there are stark, dark circles under her eyes, and the blood that stains her skin look like burns on her body. She is a wreck and she takes her time to scrub every inch of red from her skin.
She decides that it might be better if she kept quiet when she returns to reality. There is something like death in her eyes; trauma, she thinks, she is traumatised, but by what, she does not know.
XXX.
She reads. She strings sea shells together. She uses her kimoyo beads to create a mini projector system and watches movies that she finds online. Namor hovers behind, amazed at the power that she wields around her wrist and the moving images that fly high above their heads. She tells him about her creations, how she built those flying aircraft that fought against him and his armies all those months ago- she explains her methods and theories and shows the depths of her intelligence to him, not because of the war that they fought between them, but because she wants him to know that this is now a knowledge that is shared.
Your mother is dead because of him.
She knows this.
It makes her hate herself all those more.
XXXI.
She returns to the surface world.
Her return is marked by the slow ascent of the full moon in Haiti. Nakia’s home glows with welcome, and the beach is near-silent under the cover of darkness. When her feet touch the soft sand of the shore, she looks to Namor and down to their intertwined hands.
“I do not need a shell,” he says. “Call my name, and I will come.”
“I am not a weak child,” she replies, the hint of long-lost venom in her tone. He smiles, slow.
“I never said you were. Sometimes, we need to lean on others in order to grow a little taller. And,” he adds, stepping closer until she has to tilt her head just a little bit to look into his eyes, “- you are important, Shuri. Even if you might think otherwise.”
“What happened to wanting to burn the world? I am one of those surface dwellers you despise so much.”
He breathes in and out, and replies, “Burning the world meant keeping my people safe. Do not say that your mother would have done the same in order to keep you safe.”
Shuri flinches. She cannot disagree because she knows that he is right. Her mother would have done more to bring her home, if she had not gone with Nakia, if she…
If she could have saved the girl they left behind.
“You need to tell them,” Namor says. Shuri regards him.
They both know she will not.
XXXII.
When Nakia opens her door and finds Shuri standing there, she screams. Out of relief, of course. Search parties had been sent out a week ago to find her- not even her kimoyo beads were answering any of their calls. She sweeps her sister-in-law up into her arms and holds her tight. Shuri buries her nose into Nakia’s shoulder and breathes in water lilies and the soft scents of a mother.
“Bast, where did you go, child? Bast, Bast forgive me- oh, Shuri, we need to tell Okoye; Ayo and Aneka have been searching through all of the places you’ve been to- M’Baku was at his wit’s end, he was going to call in the Avengers-“
Shuri simply tunes her out. She pulls back from Nakia’s bone-crushing hug and cradles her cheeks in her hands, the tears that are free-falling down her cheeks. “I am fine, sister,” she tells her. “Everything is fine.”
XXXIII.
It has been two weeks since then. Slowly, Shuri builds her energy; the mark has settled, if only because she knows that Namor is near. Oddly, when she walks to the beach at night and steps into the water, she watches in near-awe as the mark traverses her body from wherever it is, to rest on her outstretched palm. It faces the waves, as though it knows Namor is out there, among the waves.
He is watching her. The ocean is watching her.
“Do you want me to yield?” she murmurs to her hand. It continues to glow the most irredescent purple. Not confirming, not denying.
(But whispering, into her mind, her heart, always).
They ask her to return to Wakanda. She refuses. She leaves Nakia again; this time, she tells her that she will be back in a week. There is something that she needs to do, in Mexico. Nakia looks troubled. “Has this to do with Namor?” she asks, her suspicions raised. Shuri shakes her head.
“No, but it does have something to do with our home.”
Homes, she thinks, because she thinks she knows of a way to unite Talokan and Wakanda without the need of an underwater system.
And, it might be safer, should she need Namor, or he her.
XXXIV.
The Avengers find her, then. Convenient timing.