My AU version of the years after the Decimation focused on two of my favorite MCU characters - Steve Rogers and Shuri.
A slow-ish burn.
As much therapy for me as it is a way to pass the time.
I do research to the best of my ability (Wakanda itself and the real-life region it is supposedly in), but I fully expect I've gotten something wrong.
Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think.
-MM
WASHINGTON
4 YRS AFTER THE SNAP
At six-past-two in the morning, it's still raining and Steve Rogers can't go to sleep.
He lies on his back, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening to the rain splattering in sheets against his windows. His mind wanders aimlessly through memories of the last time he saw each of the ones they lost. A silent movie he's seen a million times but can't look away from.
While his thoughts pace, his feelings gather into a tight knot of tension.
He closes his eyes briefly, the familiar sensation of regret and anxiety coalescing within him.
He's spent nearly his entire life coiled this tightly. It's a gnawing ache only rivaled by the devastating hunger of the Depression. A feeling as old and enduring as he is. He's even come to rely on it. The first time he really began to channel it into something greater than endless, private disquietude was when he finally got to serve his country. When he isn't trying desperately to find sleep at night, the super-soldier serum turns his constant tension into fuel. Since he became Captain America, that unrelenting desire for release has carried him through his toughest missions. It gives him spine; resolve; as much a motivator as it is an affliction.
It refuses to ease up and grant him (temporary) relief until he puts on the uniform; until he knows he's done everything in his power to win out on the side of truth, justice, liberty...everything he's believed in for so long.
Old fashioned. The man out of time; still obsessed with giving his life to serving the greater good. Since that terrible day four years ago, though, what Captain America believes in just isn't enough, if much use at all, for weathering the aftershock. He doesn't even know if there is still a Captain America.
What's left of the Avengers still accepts missions. Cleaning up, atoning, showing a brave front.
There's always work to be done, but none of it is the same. Not by a long shot. With each passing year, Steve is beginning to believe it never will be. After all he's lost and sacrificed, he's starting to feel his true age. That old brick of tension in his gut is starting to wear out its welcome. Four years, and it remains as solid and bitterly unsatisfied as ever.
He can't fight Thanos. Thanos is dead. The stones are gone forever. He can't bring back the ones they lost. No rousing speech or takedown of any new threat can. For the first time since he became Captain America, there is no release in sight.
I think both of us need to get a life, Nat had said to him earlier after yet another evening of picking through Chinese food and staring at the news.
In the present, Steve sighs deeply. He kicks his heavy, muscular legs out of his sheets, frustrated that he is wide awake, yet again, for the third night in a row.
His oscillating thoughts almost drown out the rain.
Nat is wrong. Getting a life isn't going to help either of them.
She can't stop hunting for a way to undo what was done. Almost nothing can distract her. In fact, all she ever seems to do lately is find ways to make everything about what they lost.
He can't stop regretting his failure. Sometimes it seems regret is all he has left. The occasional takeout date with Nat and a survivor's group that can't seem to move on is about as close to a life as he can bring himself to get. Which, of course, is no life at all.
The emotionally burned out super soldier rises slowly to sit up against his balled up pillows.
Before he can stop it, he thinks of Bucky's slow, sad smile.
Sam's concerned eyes.
Fury.
Wanda.
Vision.
T'Challa.
Tony.
The Snap, like a thousand thunderbolts striking at once. Oh god...we lost.
They counted on him. They believed in him. They followed him. They paid for it.
Outside, thunder reverberates through the rainstorm from across the distance.
The tension sits heavy and rusty in the pit of his stomach as he stares at the shadows moving across his bedroom wall. It hasn't been this dense and unignorable since he first saw Bucky's face emerge from the Winter Soldier's mask.
Brrooo-deee-brrooo!
Just like that, a familiar sound breaks through the tension like nothing else can seem to these days. Steve smiles tiredly as he registers the kimoyo beads chiming somewhere in his living room, probably from his desk where he left them a few days ago.
Shuri. Of course. Like always, her timing is downright uncanny.
Already, the tension starts to ease, just a little. He knows it'll only improve once he sees her.
With a deep, grounding breath, he gets up and lets the anticipation draw him through the dim apartment until he's pulled the beads off of the desk.
He slips them onto his wrist and rubs his thumb over the blinking bead in the middle of the band. A hologram flickers out across his palm. Queen Shuri's smirking face manifests and he remembers too late that he's shirtless. She grins and shakes her head at him as her gaze drops down just past his pecs and back up to his eyes.
"Ha, knew it. Can't sleep again?" Her pleasant voice echoes out to him like music, diffusing any uneasiness he might be tempted to feel about being shirtless in front of a queen.
"How do you do that?" Steve relaxes some, leaning sideways against the wall behind the desk to frown at her in wonder.
It's relatively dark in his apartment, with the exception of a lone night light in the kitchen and the street lamps outside being pelted with sheets of rain. He feels less exposed in the shadows, more curious how she always knows exactly when to call. It's not like he keeps an insomnia schedule...does he?
"You're as predictable as the moon, Rogers."
Steve gives her a bashful smile, accepting the jab good-naturedly.
So is she. He isn't the only one who can't sleep. He watches her moving about. Even though she's stopped looking at him and now seems to be concentrating on something, his sharp vision picks up on the dark circles under her eyes. She's in her lab, working on one of her humanitarian STEM projects, no doubt.
His smile disappears as he realizes what that indicates. "How long have you been going?"
Over the years, even though they're half a world apart and Shuri seems constantly busy picking up the broken pieces of her beloved Wakanda, they've kept in touch. Even gotten close.
She'd given him the beads after they discovered they had an easy, synergetic rapport they'd been missing out on in all his Avenger-ing and her being a prodigy. At the very first global Decimation Day memorial event hosted in Wakanda, with Shuri a newly coronated queen, they drifted together and bonded over their grief, overactive minds, and drive in life to be of use to their countrymen.
And Bucky.
She spoke so highly of Wakanda's Ingcuka; the person Bucky had become whilst recovering there; giving Steve the first few hours of peace from the overwhelming guilt he'd experienced since Thanos snapped his fingers. She spoke as if she truly cared for Bucky...perhaps more than anyone would ever know. It took Steve pleasantly by surprise.
They kept their rapport going strong until it naturally evolved into a close friendship. One he keeps to himself. Moments like this, especially. At first, he would shoot a simple kimoyo text her way every blue moon to make sure she was holding up alright, hoping she had a new project to talk about or some new 'old man' jokes to distract him from his grief. Without him even noticing, he began to really look forward to their chats, however few or far between. She provides relief for him that he hadn't expected. Spending time talking to Shuri is just...easy. Easy is so hard to come by these days.
Then, she had to go and develop this knack for knowing when to call; especially when they figured out that they were both suffering through bouts of grief or anxiety-induced insomnia. Whereas Rogers usually finds himself punching the sand out of a bag or jogging laps around Washington until dawn, Queen Shuri ends up working in her lab for days. Every now and then, they meet in the middle, unable to find satisfaction in their usual coping tactics.
She makes him laugh; takes his mind off of the painful tension tightening its grip on him whenever he's alone with his thoughts. He has endless patience, helping her mind slow down enough to let her feel fatigued. It's nice to have someone at the other end of a lifeline when he feels the walls closing in on him. He just never thought that person would be Shuri.
In the present - Shuri shrugs, her movement breaking through Steve's thoughts about the progression of their friendship. She is now actively avoiding his probing look.
"Shuri." He lets some serious concern slip into his low voice.
Shuri stops fidgeting with her work and looks at him again. He doesn't like what he hears.
"A couple of days, I think? Maybe a few hours more. Honestly, I've lost track."
Steve walks over to his couch and sits leaned over with his arms on his knees, forgetting once again that he's only wearing a pair of boxer briefs.
"I thought we talked about you giving that a rest," he admonishes gently. "Where is OKoye? I'm honestly surprised she let you - "
"I am her queen, Captain." Shuri counters him, just a bit of a bite to her tone that causes him to swallow. He forgets sometimes and starts lecturing her as if she's still a teenager. If watching her carry the burden (however from afar) of leading her country out of its darkest hour has taught him anything over the years, it's that Queen Shuri is no child playing at royalty. She is the real deal. "I sent her to personally investigate a disturbance at the border to get her out of my hair. Anyway, why are you up? Still no girlfriend to wear out that super serum?"
She smoothly changes the subject, returning to her work as he settles back against the couch.
He gets distracted, his eyes roaming across the angles of her face while her attention is elsewhere. Noticing (not for the first time lately) the way she's grown into her looks. Shuri's beauty blends her mother's timeless, graceful elegance with a warm, sweet softness and energetic glow he can only attribute to her father, T'Chaka.
He stops staring and realizes she's trying to distract him from his worry by embarrassing him. It's been too long since he truly felt like the bashful boy from Brooklyn they show in the archive footage at the Smithsonian, though.
"Seriously? That's your comeback?"
"I'm just saying, maybe you could sleep if you…you know...got some."
Her eyes flicker across his chest briefly and she shrugs, a mischievous glint flashing at him from their brown depths. Steve feels his abdomen contract under her scrutiny, the tension deep inside him igniting like a furnace after a lit match.
"Don't even start," he shuts her down quickly. "We can discuss my sex life when you get outta that lab long enough to 'get some', yourself. Or better yet, get some shut eye, your Majesty. Next subject."
When Shuri looks at him again, even in the dark as a small hologram in his palm, he can see the deep brown iridescence of her eyes. Her work on the holotech inside this latest version of the beads is nothing short of amazing. He sees her as clearly as if she's really sitting in his lap.
He wonders what she sees…
Steve cuts that thought off swiftly, forcing himself to refocus on her. He's learned to recognize that hopeful look. She wants something.
"Okay, okay, fine. Just checking to see if you're bringing someone besides Natasha to the 'D-Day' event for once." She rushes that last part, feigning nonchalance. "I think a date might distract people from asking how you're 'coping with your loss'."
Steve winces. Of course.
The memorial event is in a couple of weeks. He's been mostly focusing on Decimation Day - a day he dreads with more intensity every year - but the event is also something he hates. They both hate, or so he thought. Shuri hadn't shown up to the last one, held in what was left of Japan. The official Wakandan press release only mentioned she had come down with something severe enough to prevent her traveling, but he suspected she was more likely battling exhaustion. She worked herself too hard, too much. He had wanted to see her, but he was relieved to realize he too might be able to excuse his way out of it if the Queen of Wakanda could. Nat jumped on board and they made a pact not to subject themselves to it this year. But it's Wakanda's turn to host again, he remembers. The host nation can't just take a raincheck. Damn. She's asking him to show up.
"Ah. That."
"Yes. That." Shuri sighs, her entire demeanor deflating as if someone unplugged her. "I want so badly to call the whole thing off, Steve."
"Well, you are the queen."
"I am."
They both know she can't really do whatever she wants. What's left of the world is watching.
"And there are people counting on you." He eases into a well-practiced, gently encouraging tone, setting aside his own dread at the thought of all those people, the lingering grief, and the need in their eyes. "Wakanda's the strongest nation left, thanks to you. You're a symbol for the rest of the world with good reason, Shuri. We need all of the hope we can get right now, an example of true leadership, and I can't think of anyone who even comes close."
She looks as if she wants to argue, but wisely doesn't, because she already knows what self-deprecating thing he'll respond with. He tries not to sound ashamed, but rather as hopeful as he's encouraging her to be. It's his fault that she has to shoulder the world's expectations right now, with so much laid to waste by Thanos on Captain America and the Avengers' watch. But, his hands are tied. She's a genius leading her nation (and the world) out of darkness, and he's just an old geezer losing his sense of purpose.
Maybe supporting her can be his purpose for a little while. A few hours in a tux is nothing.
And he does miss Wakanda. He misses her.
"I know. Baba always said it's nothing to envy, ruling a nation. I thought I knew what it was all about, but...I realize now I really had no clue. Didn't even want one."
They regard each other, the weight of their responsibilities pressing down on top of them.
With a consoling smile, he breathes deeply and bucks up, channeling that old resolve of his.
"I guess I wouldn't be much of a friend if I didn't show up to have your back."
Shuri lights up like Rockefeller Center on Christmas, her grin returning in full bloom. The snarky little sister of the Black Panther he'd met years ago emerges through the somewhat fatigued, though still innately radiant Queen Shuri of today.
"Yes! Thank Bast, I thought I'd have to bribe you. What would an old boy scout-like you even take?" She gets going like thunder, as she does on occasion, and he settles in for a rush of sing-song jokes and observations he'll have to translate in order to respond to. "I read somewhere that something called Lincoln Logs was verry popular in your day. What on Earth did you do with those?"
Steve laughs, watching her wrinkle her nose at the name of the old fashioned toy. He's been hoping for this, he realizes. The laughter rolls through him warmly, spreading up to his chest and out of him in a rumble, shaking loose the tension he's been feeling for days. The pleasant sensation lasts, holding him hostage for a moment. Shuri's really the only person left who can still make him belly laugh. That rare achievement was previously only held by Bucky and Sam, with the exception of Peggy when she managed to get his guard down. No, he admits to himself, he doesn't feel this kind of levity with anyone anymore; not even with Nat. He misses it. He misses the ability to just be, without feeling like he's sitting on a ticking time bomb.
"Congrats. You discovered how to Google the thirties."
She sticks her tongue out at him, eliciting an even warmer chuckle from deep in his chest.
"Okay then, whatever you want. Mint Cracker Jack cards? A vintage Slinky in its original packaging? I think I saw one of those old-timey red wagons on eBay..."
She waves her slender hand at him as she rattles off a few different vintage toy products from his childhood era.
"Now you're just reading me random search results, come on. Disrespectful."
He laughs some more, shaking his head in amusement that she would go to those lengths just to soften him up enough to accept her request. She must really be dreading this event.
"Hey." She finally makes eye contact again, her smile fading, the mirth draining from her sparkling eyes. Steve sighs, his grief and a certain unspoken name between them settling again into a tense knot deep inside him. "I'll be there. No need to bribe me with Cracker Jacks."
She makes a noise of mild amusement, but also relief, he can hear. He knows exactly what she's feeling. If it was him, he'd want the only person who can make him forget (even just for a few hours) to be within reach, too. Suffering through her not being there last year is what made him swear off going again in the first place.
"It's just…" Shuri wipes at her eyes. He notices they looked like they were sparkling before because she's been holding back tears. She's very tired, and it's obviously taking a toll on her emotions, which have been swaying since he answered the call. He waits. "The closer we get to the day, I can't stop thinking about all these people, yet again, comparing me to T'Challa. Baba before him. Their expectations, sometimes, Steve...it's so much. Sometimes all I want is my brother, and my…"
He watches her sweet, lovely face crush inward with pain. He knows she doesn't want to cry and she'll be angry if she can't stop. He knows also that she longs to stop holding back.
Since that first night, she's been avoiding saying the name they're both thinking. Avoiding diving any deeper than the fond memories she offered then, when they'd been surrounded by diplomats and generals, politicians, and grieving civilians.
My Ingcuka, he imagines her finishing her sentence in her pretty accent.
He wants to know if he's right; if only she would open up that part of herself again. But then, maybe he doesn't. He chooses not to follow that line of thought. Shuri needs him, now.
"It's okay, Shuri." Steve sits forward on the couch, unconcerned with his bare chest, unkempt hair, and dark surroundings. "You won't have to go through it alone. You have my word."
"Thank you." Her laughter this time is raw and hoarse from exhaustion. "I know you hate it. But I'm so relieved you'll come. Heh, I spent the last two days talking myself into asking, so you'd better."
Shuri is a proud, ingenious, amazing young woman that Steve has grown to think of as a close friend...but at this moment all he sees is a vulnerable soul in mourning. A soul in need of comfort, protection; to be handled with great care.
He wishes, not for the first time since they've gotten close, that he could reach out to touch her; pass on his concern and offer her peace with his physical presence, somehow. He always dismisses it. She's a queen and one of the most revered people in the world. You don't touch a person like Shuri unless she invites it. I want her to...this time he has to block the thought like a bullet with an imaginary vibranium shield. No. You want to help, but don't go there.
Too late. The desire is so strong that it takes him by surprise; grips him almost as tightly as the deep dismay he feels whenever he thinks of losing Bucky and Sam. He has to refocus again, opening his mouth to say something so his thoughts don't run away from him...or he'll start imagining what her skin feels like, and that would lead to trouble.
"You gave Bucky a second chance at life before he was taken from us," Steve boldly says his best friend's name to remember himself again, emphasizing the 'us', swallowing his tension enough to let her know how much she's come to mean to him - and why. "For that, I owe you a hell of a lot more than a dance. A dance is easy."
Whatever you ask, he thinks and realizes he means it, as he gazes at her sincerely.
He watches her wince at the mention of Bucky, but she doesn't give him what he hopes. She doesn't open up. Instead, her sweet, warm glow returns.
"Good, Rogers. Then show up ready to dance, and I'll be dressing you. You're hopeless."
He rubs his eyes, already regretting his consent. He doesn't want to think about how she knows his measurements. "I can pick out my own tux, your Majesty."
Shuri makes a face at him, humming in the back of her throat. "Hmm, can you, though?"
He's forced to laugh heartily again. He'll let that one slide, too.
Steve is relieved to see at least she seems more relaxed, no longer pausing to work and avoid looking at him. They fall into easy banter. Hours pass, and by the time they end their talk, he's on his back and their cadence is much slower. They even enjoy peaceful interludes of silence in between his quiet commentary as she works and his eyelids get heavier. As dawn approaches, their mission is accomplished. The tension inside him has eased to a barely-noticeable thrum. He finally feels his mind will leave him alone long enough to fall asleep if he really commits.
Mid-sentence, Shuri yawns and unfurls herself like a cat in her lab chair. "Bast, it's past lunchtime here. I'm so hungry but sooo sleepy. Mm, finally."
Another big yawn rolls upward and outward through her slender frame. She indeed resembles a young pantheress, stretching luxuriously in a sun spot. He chuckles lethargically until watching her do it forces him to as well.
"Eat. Then go to sleep." He commands her groggily, closing his eyes in earnest. That deep yawn left his body feeling heavy, ready. "Don't force me to put in a kimoyo alert to the general."
"You wouldn't dare snitch on me."
Her indignant tone elicits one last exhausted grunt of a chuckle. She's right, but he doesn't answer.
Shuri sees that as her cue to end the kimoyo session, though she pauses to watch him lay on his back with his eyes closed. He misses her gaze lingering, dropping to his neck, chest, and what she can see of his abdomen before rising slowly to his face again.
"So you'll come? Bring Natasha? And possibly a date?"
"Nat'll be my date." If I can even convince her to come...
He refuses to open his eyes to watch her pout, but he can picture it pretty much perfectly.
"Stubborn."
"Why are you two always so concerned with my dating life?" He does open his eyes this time, really wanting to know.
"You have to get one for me to be concerned about it, genius," Shuri deadpans before quieting and lingering inside his stare. He raises an eyebrow and she relents. "But, if you say you're fine being a shut-in, I'll leave you to it."
"I'm fine being a single man, your Majesty." He lets his true age enter his voice; a rarity, but effective. "There's a difference."
He wants her to drop it. He wants everyone to. For good. It's not that big a deal anymore, or at least it shouldn't be. He doesn't have a great track record, or a great excuse, and he knows it. He's sort of given up because nothing will ever hold a candle to what he found with Peggy. He knows that, too. That was his ironclad excuse at any rate, once upon a time.
She clicks her tongue at him dismissively. "Right, I forgot. You're Steve Rogers. Lady Liberty's your woman, right?"
"Okay, Rogers out. See you in a couple of weeks." It's his turn to roll his eyes as he strokes the beads so that her beautiful, laughing face disappears.
Steve lies back, taking a deep, long breath, and covers his eyes with the crook of his arm.
The sun is starting to rise. The rain has stopped. He can still see her face behind his eyelids.
It doesn't really bother him anymore, his friends' tradition of making fun of his age. Except when Shuri does it, he can't help reacting as if it's a challenge of some kind. He wonders if she used to tease Bucky like that. The old Bucky would just lay one on her to get her to pipe down about all that 'old man' stuff. Steve smiles tiredly, remembering that back then all Bucky needed was about ten minutes, and many pretty rich girls around Manhattan who underestimated him ended up with a hickey and a changed perspective. Steve had always silently envied his best pal's ability to seduce virtually anyone without breaking a sweat.
The Ingcuka Queen Shuri described the night of that first gala would never do that, though.
The thought of Bucky finally finding not only peace, but laughter and acceptance (and love, he knows in the back of his mind) with the kind of sweet, warm energy Shuri exudes makes Steve feel deeply grateful to her once again. It makes him remember his place. His role.
He doesn't want to go to this event. Not at all. But he will put on a tux, and he will go, and he will support Shuri in any way he can. She never had to work herself up for two days to ask.
One look at the anxiety in her tearful eyes and he's already there.
One look was all it ever took with her, he realizes as he recounts any time over the years that she asked anything of him. At first, he told himself, for Bucky. For T'Challa.
Now he accepts...it's really for himself, as well. He cares for Shuri. A lot. If he's honest, caring about her is maybe the one thing he actually feels good about these days. It's the one way he knows he can honor what he lost.
If he has to suffer through yet another gauche global event reminding him of his biggest failure and most devastating loss, at least he'll spend it in the company of the only other person left in the world who makes that brick in his gut feel more like a small stone.
Steve falls asleep as the sun rises beneath a rainbow over Washington. He slips into dreaming of Shuri's face, looking forward to seeing her radiant smile in person again.