It took weeks to convince her parents and Black Bolt's that she should be allowed to see the prince at all. It took months to reach the point where she was allowed free access, more or less, to the corridor outside his cell, and the guards there grew used to her presence. Yet all this Medusa had achieved, whether through rhetoric or tears or stubbornness and pure iron will. And so, after being released from an afternoon's particularly gruelling lesson with her tutor, she found herself automatically treading the now-familiar path to the subterranean containment chamber where Black Bolt, Crown Prince of Attilan, spent his solitary days.
The way was monotonous and she allowed her mind to drift over the content of her lesson as she walked, paying little attention to her surroundings. And so it was that she failed to notice the voice drifting from the hall outside Black Bolt's cell until she turned the corner and found herself looking upon its owner.
She had never before encountered anyone else visiting Black Bolt, even when she came at irregular times. She stopped short, uncertain if she was intruding; and, indeed, not entirely eager to deal with her cousin Maximus after an already tiring day. Conversations with him had a way of making her feel off-kilter, like the ground itself was unsteady under her feet.
Maximus was leaning against the glass, a picture of over-languid familiarity as he spoke to his brother. As Medusa watched his words faded away and he turned, apparently unsurprised, to face her. Like he had sensed, or predicted, her approach. He smiled.
"Welcome, cousin. Come on, don't be shy. It's rude to loiter on the edge of a private conversation, you know."
When she hesitated, one side of his mouth quirked upwards in a twist of a larger smile. He beckoned, and she reluctantly took the last few steps forward to where she could see Black Bolt behind the glass.
He stood upright very close to the barrier separating his cell from the outside corridor and his brother. Months of silent communication had allowed Medusa to read the minutest of his expressions and postures with relative ease. He was tense.
"Medusa." Maximus' voice forced her to turn back to him. "We were actually just talking about you. Well, not talking-" he corrected with some glee, "obviously not talking. I was talking, and Black Bolt was listening. Mostly. He also wrote a few notes. He must think about you a lot – he seems to have quite a few opinions."
She forced herself to look dignified and unconcerned, knowing Maximus was likely playing games with them. "About me?"
Black Bolt drew his hand in a sharp angry slash diagonally in front of him: not the increasingly sophisticated visual language of her times alone with him, but a crude sign, intended for Maximus, that anyone might have understood. A frustrated demand to shut up now.
In response Maximus' smile just widened again, sending a shiver running down her spine. "Yes, dear cousin, about you." He pushed off from the glass and turned his back to his seething brother, facing Medusa. Her hair rose defensively and she crossed her arms, for once glad of Maximus' sometimes disturbingly delicate features, his starved-looking slightness, his relatively small stature; and for once completely without pity for the quirk of terrigenesis which had left him without powers of his own. She remained silent. He would speak without prompting if he had something to say.
Though she did not miss the way his eyes flicked nervously to the ominous rising of her hair, his smile did not slip. "But don't let me interfere. Black Bolt, why don't you confide in Medusa all that you've told me? Put it all out in the open. Best that way."
Behind his brother, Black Bolt's silhouette in the glass seethed visibly. He swept his hand violently in front of his forehead and clenched it in a fist. A few loose sheets of paper on the desk beside him burst abruptly into white flames. Medusa might have attributed it to a loss of control of his abilities, but he did not react with shock or regret.
"Well, that's no way to start a betrothal!" Maximus said, grin at odds with the admonishment. "Burning the evidence of things you've said about your intended? If you aren't careful you'll end up worse than Agon and Rynda!"
Medusa burned with twofold shame. Not only had Black Bolt said things about her – to Maximus – that he wished to conceal; now she also felt like she had stepped inadvertently right into the middle of a domestic conflict that felt utterly inappropriate to observe. Agon and Rynda were her aunt and uncle; they were her King and Queen! Seeing Maximus hint at personal strife between them – not to mention his irreverent address – had the distinct quality of being something she ought not to see.
A tap on the glass drew her out of frenzied reflection. She forced herself to look past Maximus to Black Bolt's drastically changed face. The anger was gone. Instead there was a pleading look in his eyes as he pointed to the smoldering papers, shaking his head, and then placed his hand lightly over his heart.
I swear it's not what you think.
She was saved from having to choose a response – and from having to know how she felt – by Maximus' next interruption. He smiled in satisfaction, a lopsided, pointy, hungry looking sign of perverse enjoyment. "Well, my dear cousin, I think my work here is done. Do tell me you'll talk out your issues straight away. I would hate for your royal partnership to go sour before it's even begun."
With that, he sauntered away down the corridor, turned the sharp corner, and disappeared.
And Medusa examined her shoes, futilely willing her flush of embarrassment to similarly vanish.
She raised her head at another tap on the glass.
In a flurry of movement, Black Bolt lightly bit the ends of his fingers, pointed at her and shook his head, and then pointed at himself.
"You're… not worried about me. You're worried about yourself?"
A nod.
Unexpectedly, Medusa felt tears welling up in her eyes. Whether they were due to relief or disbelief she could not be sure; she had no idea what she felt. "Why?" she whispered.
After a mere second's hesitation, Black Bolt rushed on with his signing. He opened his mouth, gestured around the cell, encircled his second-to-last finger with the fingers of his other hand, and gave a shrug with a look of such expressive desperation that Medusa's heart might have broken - all moving so quickly no one else could have followed the meaning of the gestures.
Of course, Medusa did.
"I don't fear your powers, or doubt your control," she said, voice trembling with emotion despite herself. "And I don't doubt that you will be a good husband. I don't doubt that at all."
Without looking reassured, Black Bolt grimly put his hands atop his head, invoking the distinctive shape of the Inhuman crown, and did not break eye contact.
"Wait and see," Medusa replied, tears breaking over to run down her cheeks, and placed her hand on the glass barrier that separated them, as though she could project her faith in him through the glass simply through the strength of her emotion. "Wait and see, Blackagar. I firmly believe you'll prove yourself to be a wonderful king."
He pressed his hand against hers on the other side of the glass, and for once she wasn't certain how exactly to interpret the almost-touch; but it felt right. If he was not convinced, he was at least thankful to her, and accepting of her faith and support; and he wanted to stop her tears, to provide the same faith and support.
And love.
The thought broke against Medusa's mind like clear water and she couldn't help laughing in perfect happiness through the tears.
She pressed her other hand and her forehead against the glass and he did the same, and they stood there - as close as they could come to an embrace through the barrier that separated them - until the despair and uncertainty of the minutes before felt like nothing more than a transient dream.