Visitors. There were two of them. The men were comically large around the small table the remnants of Shuri's family had sat at mere minutes before. The chattier one shot Nakia friendly smiles as she bustled about again, griping under her breath about Americans and their manners, but even Haiti couldn't take the Wakandan out of her. Moments later, she served extra large helpings of grilled shrimp and vegetables to the guests. Toussaint had been sent to his room but not before the chatty one gave him a high-five.
Shuri kept her eyes trained on his burlier companion. The White Wolf had made himself quite the name in the Border Tribe before the Snap. But his long hair was cut short and he wore civilian clothes now. His vibranium arm flexed under the harsh kitchen lights as he watched her as closely as she did him. She wondered what he saw — the same teenager he'd trusted to meddle with his brain, or a pale imitation of her.
A grin eventually broke out across his face. "I see you got a haircut."
She mirrored his jibe and gestured to his head, his haircut uglier by the minute. "The manbun sends his condolences."
"Touché."
Nakia joined them at the table, nudging Shuri with her foot. The Princess exchanged quick introductions. Nakia had been here raising Toussaint while her and her family were in the void of Thanos' snap. Her lack of presence at Battle of the Earth seemed much more logical now. At the time, she'd attributed it to the chaos of having half the world come back into existence, or maybe she herself had been blipped too. But then Ironman died and there were state proceedings to attend and Wakanda was back in the limelight as countries pushed even more against isolationism and other political stuff to figure out who was where.
Political stuff. How she wished she'd paid attention, then.
Bucky was talking again, this time to her and Nakia both. "I am very sorry for your loss. When we heard, we wanted to attend..."
"Which one?" Shuri blinked rapidly. Nakia grabbed her hand.
"Both. Both. God, Shuri, I—" Bucky choked. He was an old friend, and she knew his bandwidth for social interaction. A lifetime of brainwashing didn't disappear overnight, and it the man suffered a great loss too after America's oldest hero passed. His quiet solemnity was all she needed.
"It's okay." She swallowed thickly. Wakandan funerals were not open to outsiders, the intensely cultural and religious affairs they were. Her brother had survived a universe-wide catastrophe only to succumb to an entirely preventable disease if Killmonger hadn't...hadn't — and had the Avengers showed up, their motley crew honoring him like they did Ironman, she might've teetered into the abyss of grief far sooner.
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Both of Nakia's hands were cradling hers now. Panic bubbled up her throat and through sheer will and strength of the Black Panther did she force it back down. She refused to show weakness, but let Nakia proceed with her interrogation.
"What are you doing here? How did you find us?"
Sam smiled. "I promise, we mean no harm."
"If Shuri trusts you, I do. Please be advised I was trained to be a War Dog, a spy tenfold better than your intelligence agencies can offer. Lie to me and I'll throw you out without hesitation."
"Whoa, whoa!" Sam threw his hands up in the air. "Understood, but hear us out, please."
Shuri started to open her mouth but Bucky beat her. "Shuri, what are you doing here? We tried to contact you, even sent a message to Wakanda, but all we got was a middle finger from a guy called 'the Great Gorilla'."
M'Baku. I'm going to kill him.
Nakia pinched the bridge of her nose while Sam continued. The two made an odd pair, Sam all smiles and calm while Bucky frowned at the table, the stress apparent on his face.
"The world thinks Wakanda is reneging on their promise and they killed an innocent expedition team."
Oh, no, no, no. She left Wakanda to leave politics. She would not be dragged back into it by this duo passing in the night. Nakia, to her credit, transitioned swiftly between rubbing Shuri's hands as a consoling sister and the formidable spy she used to be, her loyalty to her homeland on full display.
"Our country did nothing of the sort."
"So you're denying it?" Sam raised an eyebrow.
"Gah! Americans, so slow. Of course we deny it." She hesitated. "You said 'think'. You don't think we did it either."
"No. T'Challa...Wakanda," Bucky corrected, "wouldn't."
"And you know this how?"
"A country that helps monsters wouldn't help create them."
Nakia cursed in Xhosa, something about crazy old men — ("technically true," Shuri told Bucky once) — but Shuri knew exactly what he meant. Warmth flooded her chest at the reminder. To her, he began as one of many projects, initially a challenge to see how far she could evolve neuroscience and biotechnology with vibranium. For him, it was a second chance at life. Maybe that's what she needed: someone to invest in her, to care and nurture her like an African Lily and give her another chance.
"Look, we need your help." All traces of smiles from the jovial man were gone now. This was the man Captain America chose to succeed him, and he looked every bit the part. "But you need to promise this stays here. If we tell you our sources, or even how we found you, we could be compromising ourselves."
Nakia frowned. "Is that a demand or a request?"
"We're not here as U.S. representatives. We're asking as friends."
"We are not friends, falcon-man." Shuri shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I cannot help you. I'm...I'm no longer the ruler of Wakanda."
They said nothing. They already knew that, she guessed, if M'Baku sent them scuttling back. But what on earth could they still need her for?
"Shuri, you're the only one left who knows how Vision's mind works."
It was a long story, and the falcon-man cracked jokes no less than four times. Nakia almost swatted him with a spoon at least twice, and to placate her Bucky did the dishes while Sam finished his story, stealing glances at the former spy to ensure his limbs were still intact.
Shuri was losing her patience. Her day had started with a walk to the beach where ashes of her ceremonial robes were scattered, and now black Captain America and the one-armed centennial were sitting in Nakia's home in Haiti, her secret nephew mere doors down the hall, while the latter scrubbed the life out of a rice pot.
Sam finished with an explanation of something called the 'Hex' and chaos magic. Shuri's frown progressively deepened throughout his colorful retellings, but now she couldn't keep her curiosity at bay. Nakia shot her another one of her knowing looks, but she couldn't help it. Magic. Reconstructing a vibranium synthezoid body without an Infinity Stone?
"So what happened to — uh — " She flailed her arms in a poor imitation of the witch. Was she a witch? Superhero? Didn't most superheroes have magical powers that made them a type of witch or wizard regardless? Except for Ironman, a kindred fellow believer in technology.
"Yeah, so, she's...out of commission. Last we heard, the wizard —"
"Sorcerer!" Bucky called, arms deep in soapy bubbles. Shuri had assured him the vibranium arm was water-proof.
"— the wizard tracked her down after she threatened to tear the fabric of the multiverse apart."
"The what?"
Sam waved his hand. "Not important. But she was our friend. She was grieving, and no one noticed something was wrong until it was too late."
Shuri stared. Maybe the Avengers only fought like a cohesive unit, a family, not that a civil war and the Snap couldn't alone damage relationships.
"We're not sure if she's still alive, and the wizard-man won't say."
"What about the green guy? He wasn't smart enough to reprogram synapses collectively, but he helped create Ultron in the first place, right?" A part of her preened at the memory of the sulking look on a world-renown, Mr. 7-PhDs, at a teenager upstarting him.
"Off-world."
Shoot. And Ironman was dead. They must be desperate.
Nakia tapped her foot impatiently. "What do you need her help with? To find this White Vision?"
"Yes. And fix him, if possible." Sam glanced around the apartment for the first time and lowered his voice. "Do you why the CIA was looking for vibranium?"
A sort of numbness took residence in the pit of her stomach.
"SWORD created White Vision to kill Wanda. It didn't work at first, but this new Vision is a mix of Vision's old body, magic, and scraps of vibranium. His old body was organic tissue infused with vibranium, making him near destructible. They were hoping, with Wakanda open, to restart Project Cataract and get a number of these vibranium synthesoids weaponized. Imagine an army of Visions, all sentient, made of the strongest metal on Earth. How desperate do you think America — or any country — would be?"
Shuri sunk into her chair. "Very," she whispered. "Very desperate."
"White Vision got his memories back and escaped. Every intelligence agency has a department scrambling to find him before someone else does. He's made himself untraceable. And this attack, the way it was carried it, is starting to look more like Wakanda took him back and sent him to..."
Bucky resettled at the table, the sounds of the chair scraping across the floor the only noise in the room.
Luckily, Nakia was truly a gift from Bast herself. "I've never heard of such utter antelope crap."
Bucky grimaced. "I know. With Wakanda's Queen gone and the country's lack of response to international inquiries into the issue, it's not looking good. We're worried the government's not above launching an attack if we don't get answers soon."
"And who is 'we', Sergeant Barnes?" Nakia bristled.
"Shuri," Sam interrupted, addressing her directly. "Can you help us? I think we all would appreciate no war for sometime."
Nakia scoffed, muttering something about the audacity of two men serving a warmongering country, but Shuri wondered what nobility Wakanda had left, considering the battle she'd dragged them into. One that was entirely preventable.
"We need your help to find Vision. Show the world Wakanda is a responsible party and can be trusted with vibranium, and that it was not you —"
"Is that what they say? That I created him?" She thought about that day occasionally and how if she had just worked a little bit faster to remove the stone, one blonde-haired woman would not be left a widow, Thanos wouldn't complete his gauntlet, and...and. There were always ands.
"No. Tony got enough flack for that." Sam rubbed his eyes. "But you're in danger. Who knows what they'll do to get their hands on you and your brain. Bucky told me all about the stunts you pulled."
Shuri preened internally.
"Finding Vision will help you too," Bucky added. "T'Challa tried to kill me —"
"Understandable," she and Sam chimed together.
"— and then saved my life. Wakanda is the only place I have ever felt peace. We'll help."
Shuri closed her eyes, remembering the engineer from MIT. How Riri unwittingly helped start a war with Talokan all because she built a powerful machine to impress her professor. An overlooked genius, drowning in experiments in a lab, unaware of the consequences inventing could wreak. She remembered her skill, building a dehyradator and a flying suit like it was a mildly challenging cookbook recipe, as they worked together to put an end to all this.
"It wasn't us."
"I know." Bucky assured, but it sounded doubtful even to her. His next words confirmed it. "Then who was it?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why?"
Nakia stood up, waving her hand to disjoin the unwelcome meeting. "The Princess and I need to speak. You two are welcome to stay here, if you were careful enough to not be followed. Not a single word of any of this until my son leaves for school tomorrow." She swiveled on her heel and left after thanking Bucky for his help.
The conversation had teetered dangerously close to one topic she refused to open, even with Nakia.
"We can't tell them."
It was almost dawn and Toussaint would be up in a matter of hours for school. Bucky and Sam were resting in Shuri's room, so she was on the floor next to Nakia in hers, panther eyes trained at the ceiling. In the dark her eyes were sensitive enough with the herb's help to recognize the general shapes and patterns around her.
After two hours of turning and sighing on her mat, she had thought that if Bast didn't want to grant her a full night's rest, she could at least make it productive by debating a similarly-restless Nakia. Unfortunately, after another two hours, they were back where they started and no closer to deciding their next move.
"We have to." Nakia insisted. "This is politics, usisi."
"And I hate it." She tried to keep the whine out of her voice.
"We have vibranium, but we cannot win in a war against the entire planet, or risk losses even with America. We must keep our people safe."
Strange how different philosophies grew from the same root. Will you join me and go to war with the world, to protect our people? Her heart rate speed up. Those memories felt further away than even her father's death, despite barely two months having passed since she met him. Him. He was nothing more than him in her mind. Putting a name to him would dredge up all the things he said as he wrapped a bracelet, a family heirloom, around her tiny wrist, asking her to join him in a crusade against everyone who could hurt his people; his godforsaken pointy ears, stilted smile as he watched her witness what no one else before her had; yielding beneath her feet, almost cradling the spear at his neck...
"Show him who you are, Shuri."
I am not my brother, but I am not Killmonger.
"That's what I'm trying to do, and breaking our promise to him will compromise our people."
"You made a promise to him as the Black Panther, protector of Wakanda, but Wakanda's King did not."
Hot fury expelled the last of Shuri's desire for sleep. "You saw what he and his people did. You —" she allowed herself a shaky breath. "You saw what he did to Mother. They have vibranium but they can use it ways we can't even imagine, more than what we saw in Wakanda. They had hundreds of years to build a civilization completely on their own."
"So did we."
"But we didn't grow gills."
She heard Nakia growl in frustration. "Usisi. We have other allies. We cannot be bullied by one empire that no one knew existed and stand by them at the cost of the rest of the world. Your brother made a decision to open Wakanda precisely so we could engage with the world, to make Wakanda a country others looked to model, not be bulled by a water kingdom!"
Shuri hissed and sat up on her mat, hands curling into fists. "He killed her! So easily! They are powerful, Nakia, and I made a promise with them!" I promised him.
"Is that why you made a truce? Because you were too weak to beat him?"
Silence.
"Leave."
"This is my room."
"You left my brother and us easily."
Nakia left.
Bucky and Sam wisely ignored the tension in the kitchen that morning, or they didn't notice it at all. Toussaint was plenty cheerful for the four of them ("Can that arm turn into a sword? Can I go boating with that shield?") so Shuri spent her time toying with the porridge Nakia made, a quiet mumble of gratitude the only words exchanged since their argument. She needed a nap, and maybe she could ask Bucky to knock some sense into her. Why would she say such a horrible thing?
Nakia had always done right by their whole family until the Snap. No one could fault her for coping in her own way because she thought them all dead for five years, alone in a different land with her son she needed to keep secret. What was mere moments for T'Challa, Shuri, and half the Dora Milaje was a curse for her mother and Nakia. Then they were robbed again by the disease that took T'Challa, and the only thing Shuri could offer the woman her brother loved was a metaphorical slap across the face. Shuri had taken every kindness the only family she had left in this world offered her and destroyed it like a petty child.
Is that what politics did, make children out of leaders? Or was it just her, a coward?
She was a woman now. If she failed to maintain her country, she could at least maintain her relationships. She volunteered to walk Toussaint to school, leaving Bucky and Sam alone and hoping Nakia wouldn't return to a home reduced to rubble as she practiced her apology. Toussaint spouted a long stream of questions about the mysterious visitors but quickly diverted his attention to Shuri's childhood and experiences growing up in Wakanda. While Nakia shared nightly stories with the boy about his homeland, he seemed desperate for more, even asking her about the tribes and her kimoyo beads.
He would make a good king one day.
Nakia was watering her plants when she returned. The woman had adjusted her schedule to fit Shuri into her life after she arrived, working fewer hours per day but increasing the number of shifts per week. Shuri herself had been in the process of looking for some humanitarian to engage locally and was supposed to start next week with Nakia's help.
Nakia did so much, expecting so little in return. She looked up at Shuri's soft footsteps. She looked better with age, and T'Challa would have loved her more with every passing year.
Shuri's rehearsed apology evaporated as the tears she was suppressing since yesterday finally spilled onto her cheeks.
"I am so, so sorry."
The woman wrapped her in her arms, squeezing her tight.
"You were living peacefully, and I came and changed everything and now —"
"Hush. I am upset with you, but I don't love you so little that your anger makes a difference."
Shuri cried harder.
Bucky crashed into the front yard, Sam hot on his heels. They were out of their civilian clothes; Bucky in some collared, leather jacket and Sam's suit was if Chris Rogers' Captain America uniform had mated with a falcon. An apt conclusion to Sam's character arc, if Shuri cared to think hard about it. She had only seen the man in fleeting glimpses, her most vibrant memory when they "blipped" and he flew into the Citadel, Wakanda's palace, with a sorcerer on his back and yelling about getting them to New York via a magic portal. It was quickly becoming apparent that the most memorable memories of her life outside of family involved some type of magic or another.
"You need to go back to Wakanda." Falcon-man breathed, breaking her from her reverie and from Nakia's warm arms. "They're onto us. The American government sent another expedition to find vibranium, and a troop was deployed to enter Wakanda."
"What?"
All around her, Sam, Bucky, and Nakia erupted into frantic, half-broken sentences. Passersby paid them no heed, a reminder that what threatened the world on a regular basis was a passing concern for most. Shuri listened to the shouts, still sluggish from her lack of sleep and breakdown, that it was only a familiar rasp on an old iPhone Bucky held in his hand that jolted her fully awake.
"Okoye!"
"Princess! Where are your kimoyo beads? I have been calling — these primitive phones! — you must go home at once. It's not safe."
The panic from last night returned. "I can't. I will be safe here, Okoye, but please tell me what's happening —"
"Not for your safety. Wakanda's safety. Wakanda needs your protection. I will take care of heading to the expedition's location, but there will be war and —" The call dropped. Bucky tried to reconnect, but there was no time.
"We need to go." Sam hauled his shield over his shoulder. White and red glasses covered the top half of his face, almost as obnoxious as the rest of his suit. "Bucky can get you back in a Quinjet."
An objection spilled out of Shuri before she could stop it. Her mind raced forward with a dozen ways this crisis could unfold, each one worse than the last. "No! What expedition? Are they going back to Ta — that place where the last expedition happened? How did they get another vibranium sensor?"
"We don't know, but sounds like it."
Shuri met Nakia's gaze. "I need to warn them."
"Shuri, no."
"Who's them?" Bucky interjected.
Shuri was already fiddling with her kimoyo beads, the buzz under her fingertips familiar as they linked to Wakanda's mainframe. "Bucky, can you take Nakia and Toussaint to Wakanda? Sam, try to tell your government we — Wakanda will meet with them if they call off this stupid power play. Give me three days."
Sam flexed his arm. The shield on his back tilted with the movement. "Two."
"Shuri, you can't be serious —"
One of the kimoyo beads lit up and displayed the map she'd captured with her earrings, all those days ago. An underwater city. "Two days."
Shuri wrapped her arms around the white wolf, a hint of a smile on her face. "Thank you, Bucky, for coming."
"Yeah, yeah," He mumbled awkwardly, "But who's them?"
Sam was halfway out of the yard before large wings erupted from his back. The metal tubes shimmered like muscle fibers, launching him into the morning sky. Shuri absently noted a few places where she could improve the suit, one day, if she ever made it back to her lab. Behind her, Nakia grabbed her arm.
"Shuri! I forbid you from going. You cannot go back to that place."
"I need to." Shuri leveled her gaze at the woman. "Wakanda can manage against one American troop with you and Okoye. But we cannot win against the consequences of a broken truce. We need to show good-will if this will ever work, and I promised to protect them like I do mine."
The words had their effect. Nakia stilled, her grasp on Shuri's arm relaxing as her eyes sharpened. "Are you ordering me?"
"As your princess."
To her surprise, Nakia smiled. Shuri hadn't called herself a princess in a long time.
"Who's them?"
At the bottom of her bag was a single conch shell, placed in a small box to prevent damage (and Nakia's prying eyes when laundry time came around), not that oversized clothes and tracksuits could do much damage to objects made to survive deep oceanic water pressures. Her bag's front pocket, amidst a tangle of random objects, coins, and wrinkled gum wrappers, sat a hundreds-year old bracelet that better belonged in a museum than to rest on the ebony of her wrists.
She hesitated, and pulled it over her right hand.
They were parting gifts that solidified an alliance Wakanda was essentially wrangled into: to protect Talokan, or be destroyed by them. But if Shuri were honest with herself, it was an alliance born from a desire to protect her world and the peace of the world at large.
When she saw his bast-damned face, she knew she couldn't be properly angry at his reasons — Wakanda was once isolated and threatened into opening up. Yet Killmonger was not of the water. Killmonger sought his own power and perpetual war even if there were alternatives; the water-king felt the only option to keep his people safe was to unleash war until there was no one but vibranium empires remained.
Water trickled down the ridges in the conch shell. Her hands grasped at it tightly as she strode across the beach she'd made her second home.
The shell was the whispers of a promise, a frail alliance that she chose after days of anguish and guilt tearing at her insides. She was not her brother, but she'd chosen the path he started to walk down all those years ago when he spared their father's killer and then when he buried Killmonger with their ancestors. She was his shadow, following a glimmer of hope that maybe her cowardice could be outshone by the simple adherence to protect her brother's wishes.
To protect Wakanda, she would protect Talokan. She could not begrudge Namor for arriving at the same conclusion she'd made him yield to.
She pressed her lips to the shell.