The island of Cape Verde would have been a fantastic place to travel, if Bucky was the sort that enjoyed vacations and other 21st century millennial things.
But a crashed Quinjet did the job. He watched the waves hit the cliffside with an odd sort of detachment, not unlike the one he had felt in his years as the Winter Soldier when his would limbs obey commands of others.
Behind him, for the second time in his life, John Walker was being taken down by Wakandans in an embarrassingly short amount of time. Nakia moved differently than the Dora Milaje but she moved swiftly and effectively. The last time he got involved in a fight with Wakandans, Ayo preformed a series of jabs that left his vibranium arm rolling across the floor. The Dora Milaje folded up all of them — John, the not-yet Captain America, and a Winter Soldier — like wet blankets. He waited until the sounds of grunts and shouts subsided before tearing his eyes from the scenery, enjoying one last look at the ocean.
John was tied to a tree. He wore a black suit with red and white alternating stripes across the chest that looked alarmingly like a dark version of Captain America's suit. The Quinjet he had flown and used to shoot at them at had suffered damage from a poor landing — the guy wasn't a pilot, last he knew, and it took Bucky himself months to fly without Sam breathing down his neck.
Bucky groaned. "C'mon, dude."
Nakia kept her spear extended, keeping her eyes trained on the captured man. Her son was crouching between the two Quinjets, hands over his ears. "Who is this man?
"Was Captain America for a short time before Sam, took some super serum, bludgeoned a man. Helped us out in the end - some of the other Dora met him a while ago." At the mention of the warriors, John paled, throwing his hands up in the air.
"I only serve my country —"
Nakia jabbed her spear at him, the tip hovering under his neck thankfully before he could utter another Lincoln quote. "Who sent you? Why were you following us?"
And doing a shitty job at it too. The fact that it was John, of all people, tailing them after his discharge meant that someone had sent him, someone who needed to go under the radar. If it was official business they would be surrounded by half of S.H.I.E.L.D and trained soldiers, not wannabe Captain Americas with serious anger problems. Bucky thought they had parted on amicable terms, too.
For his part, John didn't look like he wanted to be here either. He was a super soldier, mere ropes found in the dusty storage of an old Quinjet wouldn't stop him. So what was he getting at?
"Barnes, you're being followed."
"Yeah, what else is new?"
John jutted his chin out at his Quinjet. "Take it to wherever you're going, when they see the crash and me here they'll assume there was a shootout and you both escaped."
Bucky's gut twisted. Could he trust him? "Who sent you, how and why did you find us?"
"I've been trailing you and Captain America since you left to find White Vision. I was ordered to infiltrate Wakanda," Nakia snorted at that, "but I overheard you talking with her, and realized Wakanda didn't have him. So I'm tapping out."
Nakia and Bucky both frowned. She spoke first.
"Can we trust him?"
"Not sure. Could all be a trap, but he's not smart enough to come up with something that convoluted." He moved to address John. "Have you got any leads on him?"
"No. I left your trail a couple times to follow reports of sightings in Slovakia, but they went nowhere."
Slovakia? What was in Slovakia? "Do you mean Sokovia?"
"No," John said impatiently.
Nakia retracted her spear and pulled Bucky aside, striding towards her son as she spoke in a rush of words. "Parts of Sokovia were absorbed into Slovakia after Ultron and the Avengers destroyed the capital. King T'Chaka spoke frequently of the disaster before he went to speak at the Accords."
A wave of guilt flushed over Bucky at the reminder. Zemo had bombed the building that claimed King T'Chaka's life, framing him, but he felt no less dirty. Still, Shuri had assured him over the years that she bore him no ill will, that she was a victim as much as she was. Then he went and set the man free, and Ayo needed to come salvage the situation before Zemo unleashed more havoc.
He shook his head to banish the thoughts. He could return to wallowing in pity later.
Nakia was still talking. "Is this Vision not part Ultron?" She raised an eyebrow at Bucky, waiting for a confirmation.
I see. "Yeah, he was. Is. You're thinking he went back to Ultron's largest crime scene?"
"It's a possibility."
It was the largest lead Bucky had in weeks but first, his iPhone was gone, and Nakia's Kimoyo beads were still undergoing self-repair after she had damaged them during their free fall. It would be at least another thirty minutes until they were back online and they needed to get to Wakanda first.
Bucky gave John a nod of thanks and climbed into his Quinjet between Nakia and the boy.
Becoming good was a long process, but John seemed quite taken with it.
Honestly, they were being overdramatic. Were they all like this?
I should've known. A King was only a reflection of his people, and clearly they followed in the footsteps — butterfly strokes — of his dramatic ass.
All things considered, a small part of Shuri said her reaction was a tad overblown and that a pillow fight with the water-king that left his stomach caved in for an hour was nowhere near conducive for world peace with a violent, secret nation, but his betrayal made her sick to her stomach.
He did exactly what he did before, and she shamefully fell victim to his playbook. Apparently all one needed to best the new Black Panther was to butter her up with nice clothes and share anecdotes about a dead mother. Checkmate, Riri had warned her, Beauty and the Beast. She was a beauty, maybe, but he was no regretful man trapped in the body of a monster seeking penance.
He was the monster.
Word had gotten out about their little squabble to thinly-veiled amusement of the guards: a hot-headed princess garnering sympathy with disease before striking at the goodwill of their king ("He barely hit the wall!" she fruitlessly protested).
Two guards watched her around the clock now. They took away every object that could serve as potential candidates for impromptu missiles. Her pillows were gone, they replaced her food trays with kelp bowls (she had half the mind to test her punches with sea algae, just for research purposes), and welded the bedside table to the floor. That last one was a double hit at her ego. Imagining the damage she could've done had she only thought a bit smarter and thrown the stone drawer at his head brought a scowl to her face.
She was surprised that almost killing him in battle hadn't garnered the same caution when she arrived here. It's not like he was hiding it, since he painted a freaking mural — the Bast-damned masochistic bastard — of his forfeit.
She also resigned herself to sleeping in a pile of blankets on the floor, hammock be damned. They were soft, at least, smelling conspicuously like salt and cinnamon, not unlike —
Her brain screeched a halt. She would rather crash that train of thought in a blazing, uncontrolled fire than see where it led.
That was how day one ended, with Namor retreating to his office to lick his wounds, the healer returning with more bandages, and her setting up camp on the floor, no closer to answers than she had two hours ago. The only development was a pounding headache.
Sleep didn't come easily. Visions of walls collapsing under the water, another guard dying at the end of Nakia's laser gun, or Toussaint succumbing to disease like his father would meet her in her dreams. She hoped she could believe Namor about the Americans, at least. If he didn't retaliate at an herb-powered princess, then maybe innocent civilians would be spared too.
Finally, exhaustion forced her into a deep sleep as she succumbed to his low voice echoing in her ears. Sympathy. At least his voice was less grating than Killmonger's.
Wakanda did not fall that night, to no one's surprise. Talokan may have killed their Queen, but T'Challa, Bast be with him, already rid the world of the only threat that almost toppled their country, and their forcefields remained a near-impenetrable barrier to anyone without vibranium.
Okoye dug her foot into the soldier writhing beneath her. Ross was busy with the falcon-man, trying to coordinate some sort of contact with the American general sent on this stupid mission.
The ship wobbled as the Wakandan forcefield let them through. The Golden City sparkled in the midnight glow the closer Ross hobbled the ship towards it — American airships were clunky boxes of metal. Okoye wondered if she could get approval to repurpose it as furniture in her home. Their previous technology extraordinaire wouldn't have bat an eyelid, and would even harvest the metal with her, but she was now a kilometer under the ocean off the coast of Mexico.
Before she could roar at the colonizer could again, the falcon-man called towards her.
"Where's Bucky?"
The solider under her whimpered in pain, earning another swift kick to the stomach. He passed out under Okoye's barest hint of a scowl. "You tell me, eagle man."
"I'm a falcon." He paused. "Though an eagle might've made more sense."
Okoye didn't have time for his jests, still thinking about the nice refrigerator American metal would make. She barked orders at some of the Dora who were busy with another soldier. Aneka's head snapped up, a rueful look on her face as recognition dawned on her. She fiddled with her wrist. "Ayo, I will be with Okoye."
Of course. Ayo was general, not her. When Aneka approached her, Okoye reformulated her commands as a set of requests. "Nakia is missing."
"And Bucky!"
"And the White Wolf. They were supposed to be here before us. Can the Dora Milaje send out a search party? Ask the technicians to see if they can track her Kimoyo beads."
Aneka frowned. "If they're damaged, then only Shuri would know how to ping them."
Okoye cursed. They were in the middle of arranging a search party, two of the Milaje jumping out the ship and into the surrounding land of the Border Tribe to notify Border authorities, when the falcon-man called to her again.
"It's Buck!"
Namora was staring at him again. Without the water-mask to cover half her face, her distaste at the situation was on full display. Namor could count on his hands the number of times he saw anything but a scowl or gleeful blood-thirst from her.
Ripples of amusement had torn through the council meeting that morning, dissolved only by Namor's updates of impending changes to their alliance with Wakanda. Once he left the shark throne, though, Attuma cornered him in one of the palace's many lounges clearly holding back a mocking laugh. Namora stood behind him, arms crossed and face contorting through degrees of revulsion.
"The Feathered Serpent God loses to a land animal."
"Didn't you hear, Attuma?" Namora sneered. "He's a gentleman. Never-mind that no woman has stayed so close to his chambers in decades."
Namor bit into a strip of seaweed. The lounges needed better snacks, and they could learn from land-dwellers and their love for good cuisine, not that he would admit it under the threat of death. (My body is a hybrid," he explained to Attuma some odd years ago, "my biology requires a variety of foods.")
"I will remind you that the Princess is the strongest person on the surface, the first human to ever lay eyes on our nation, and we need her to keep Wakanda on our side." He felt like those broken record-machine the engineers tinkered with, having explained this to Namora a dozen times in the last month alone. Of course she wouldn't give up an opportunity to side with Attuma's complaints, and he sounded overly defensive, even to himself. He forced himself to simmer; never had personal affairs ever rattled his external self this much before. He was a benevolent god with time and wisdom beyond compare. "She was sick."
"Was she?" Attuma drawled, grabbing a slice of seaweed for himself with his sharp talons. "I don't think this arrangement entails mercy, just that she is alive and safe. Perhaps I can interrogate her —"
"No one comes near her."
Attuma's shark-like grin widened, if possible. "Possessive?"
"I promised her people her safety, and we cannot lose this opportunity. The guards will do just fine."
"A promise of our people is sacred," Namora acknowledged, "but what has Wakanda done to earn our goodwill other than killing twenty-seven of our people?"
He had answered this very question at the council meeting, explaining in impatient terms that she willingly offered herself to them over her own people. "Yet even if I could leave, I would not," he overheard her say to Patli. Patli had been thoroughly scolded, ordered to restrict herself to a maximum of three insults per shift.
Yet Namora was looking for something else. He would have to lie to her a second time. He hated lying to her, to his people.
"The Princess is willing to stay here as long as necessary for our sake." He would have to spend the day making that true, of course.
He left Attuma to his own devices as more council members trickled into the lounge seeking the latest bunches of seaweed. Namora followed and he sighed internally, hoping she wouldn't launch another question that required another lie.
It was worse. Their gods were not looking favorably upon him today.
"If she was sick, then why was she sleeping on the floor?"
Perhaps Namora had taken up sweet-talking the guard-gossip network. Or maybe she had developed an agenda after his oversight left his guards dead in the catacombs all those months ago. Either way, there was no possibility she missed the way he jerked a little far too right in his swim strokes down the hall.
He resisted the urge to ask why she was levying strange questions at him and hoped a noncommittal grunt was enough to satiate whatever curiosity driving her today. The Americans needed tending to.
Her day passed much like the latter half of the day prior, except she could pace as she plotted and planned. The ache in her foot was nearly gone, though her arm was still tender and bandaged. Fen checked in on her that morning and thankfully the swelling had left behind puckered skin that would soon begin to scar. But infection was still possible, and Shuri could only estimate the extent of bacteria in a damp, cave environment like this.
The rude guard, Patli, was on shift again, but she was much more quiet like her somber companion today. Once an hour, though, she would open her mouth and gurgle through her water-mask.
"You mock our King's kindness."
"A Black Panther is a carcass like any other land animal in water."
"A pathetic set of webbers."
Shuri whirled around, fed up at her uncalled-for shenanigans. She had seen High School Musical enough times to know all about catty women, and she was surrounded by people in the palace who loved her but didn't hesitate to criticize her appearance. This was a new low. "There's nothing wrong with my feet!" A pause. "I'm not even TalokanilI! I can't control the look of my hypothetical, nonexistent webbers."
"Even if you were," Patli sniffed, "He wouldn't have you."
Shuri froze to the spot, her voice reduced to an embarrassing squeak. Somewhere, Killmonger keeled over in a cruel laugh.
"What did you say?"
Patli looked as confused as Shuri felt. The Talokanil responded with what was likely the nicest sentence Shuri would ever get from her. "Are your ears deaf, girl? Whose jade stones do you think you're wearing?"
Shuri raised her arms as if she hadn't admired the sleeves and imperial gems over the course of the morning. There was no change of clothes — and she didn't want to insult the Talokanil (the dresses looked handmade) - so she had changed back into the teal fit. Now that she was mostly recovered she better appreciated the way the hem flowered around her legs.
"Er, I don't know?"
Patli scoffed. "The Queen Mother's. She was gifted jade over her short life in gratitude for giving birth to our King."
"That…doesn't mean anything." The bracelet on her wrist burned. "Right?"
"We are a generous people to those who deserve it." Patli's fishy gaze raked over her body. "You have not done anything worthy of jade stones yet, so the unsavory conclusion is beginning to make its rounds."
"I spared the life of your King."
Patli harrumphed. "That does not make you a queen."
Oh, great. So now she was a kept woman. Not Beauty, but Persephone. Half of Wakanda was probably harried to death looking for her; she refused to believe Namor could convince them to simply be on their merry way based on his word alone — and waterpeople had the audacity to think she would willingly come here to be some sort of alluring sacrificial lamb in the name of an alliance.
She facepalmed. Except, she sort of did. Minus the alluring part (she hoped).
A worrisome thought crept unbidden into her mind. The words felt dangerous to articulate.
Did Namor see it that way?
No. Aghast, she shooed the thought from her mind. He was an honorable enemy. The Feathered Serpent, fishboy elf-looking water-king, but he wouldn't dare lay his hands on her. He knew better. He had verbally tortured her and solidified her status as a mere collateral, just another face among the Americans he lowered himself to protect.
Then why was she here, across a beautiful pond to his personal chambers, while the Americans were who knows where?
I'm his ally. Supposedly.
Shooting Patli a final glare, she resumed her pacing, flushing out her previous thoughts out with the crisis at hand. He betrayed her, so she didn't owe him any more help. Sam gave her two days. She had to go back. The world could be burning for all she knew.
No amount of tinkering with her Kimoyo beads sounded the activation signal. She had even changed into her Black Panther suit — the tears were getting worse, but she was getting desperate — to climb the rocky interior of her cave room and see if the signal would connect from there. There was nothing.
She considered breaking out of her room. Two guards were easy enough to handle, but then what? With a torn suit and no oxygen tank, the furthest she could go was Namor's office. Stealing the mask of one of the guards was an option, but how long she could last in water without Nakia's watercraft helping her led her to the same conclusion.
A flash of inspiration struck her: maybe she could steal an exosuit. Last time, some of the Talokanil had helped her into it, but it was American-made and nothing she couldn't figure out on the fly.
There was a third, less violent option. She could ask Namor to see the city again. Along the way, she would convince him to take her to the Americans, spend some time in secret to commiserate, and then escape.
She kept this plan in the back of her mind. Her unceremonious leave before had been hasty and led to the chain of events that concluded in her mother's death. This time, she would tie loose ends and then make a dashing escape, for both Wakanda and Talokan.
Okay, Shuri. It's go time.
It was not go time if the bloody mutant never showed up. Lunch passed without ceremony, and the early afternoon crawled by at a waterbug's pace. She ate alone under the watchful eye of Patli and her companion that she couldn't quite figure out. Then they traded spots with the guard who had greeted her when she woke bloodied and bandaged yesterday, and a mousy young woman who smelled a great deal more like shrimp than the others.
They were somewhat friendlier. They patiently answered her questions about Talokanil food as she sipped on afternoon tea, more eager to answer the more Shuri displayed curiosity about their culture. And she was eager — this was new territory for humanity, and she was nothing if not an advocate for an exchange of knowledge.
The guards didn't entertain her questions on war history or geography or anything about the current crisis, so she stayed in safe territory. Questions about food led to questions about lifestyle, family and culture, marriage, and even their masks. Shuri absorbed the new information like freshly knit cotton.
"We stayed completely submerged for the first fifty years." The mousy woman, Atzi, explained. The three were sitting on the floor a ways from her hammock. "But our population was growing and we couldn't sustain ourselves just on fish anymore."
The other guard hadn't offered a name yet, slow to open up, but this topic seemed to interest her too much to keep quiet.
"We can survive for a couple minutes without masks, but any more is lethal. After the burial of K'uk'ulkan's mother, no one went to land except him. The first long-term treks on land killed early explorers. K'uk'ulkan did everything on his own and refused to sacrifice anymore lives. It was a few years before someone perfected the way to use vibranium as a filter, keeping the air out, but just enough water in our masks to soak up the oxygen from the outside and feed it to us." The guard tapped at the translucent material covering lips.
"You sound like an engineer." Shuri remarked. "What are the schools like down here? Are there something similar to engineers?"
"Juana wanted to be one," Atzi quipped. The guard, Juana, shot her a glare. "But most of us go into vocational work. We work as one unit; everything we do is to further our survival. Only a couple of engineers are needed to maintain us."
"Is inventing not survival?"
Juana sighed. "Of a spiritual sort to many of us, but the others," she added, and Shuri recognized the bitterness in her voice, "see no value in wasting our time with such trivialities."
Sadness bloomed in Shuri's chest. "Our problems are not so different after all." She felt a kindred connection with the woman and reached out a hand to grasp her slippery ones.
Not unlike Namor did yesterday, a treacherous part of her brain reminded her. Her grasp on the woman's hand was short-lived but she lifted her head to meet Juana's wide eyes.
Atzi was still chatting, oblivious to their tender moment. "There's been some news though that the masks could change to last longer. Right now we can be above water for four to five hours," Shuri had guessed that from how long each shift of guards stayed, "but Ohtli said they're working on one that will last for a day!"
Juana folded her arms, skeptical. "Really? They haven't changed these masks in years."
"Yes! They're looking at the Princess' box."
Shuri was immediately taken by the mention of a box. Did they mean her oxygen tank? She had been wondering where it went but was too preoccupied to pursue that as an argument-starter with Namor.
"Yes!" She exclaimed. "The mechanism should work, just in the opposite direction! I developed it after, uh — sometime after my last visit here. The tank holds in air like your masks do water, but whenever it goes too low, an osmosis filter pulls in oxygen, filters and recycles it, and then sends it to my mouth through my Black Panther mask."
Juana nodded, following along, but Atzi scratched her mask. Struck with inspiration, Shuri held up her teacup. "This is a water mask that keeps liquid inside. But it works just the same if I were to seal the top and dunk it in a vat of tea, keeping air and liquid from mixing. You just need to make the teacup out of a vibranium filter so fine that it pulls oxygen molecules from one side to the other."
The three continued to chatter excitedly, Juana brighter than she had been hours ago. Eventually, their shift was done, but Atzi left with promises to speak to the engineers and even seek permission from Namor to bring them to her. Shuri felt giddy in a way she hadn't since she synthesized the heart-shaped herb. The years up to and after her brother's death passed in a haze. Her focus was solely on restoring the herb and other projects fell to the wayside. It was rekindling of sorts to meet another person, another soul, roused by the ideas and possibilities the way she had most of her life.
One of the new guards announced a summons. Shuri stumbled, yanked from the place of passions and back to a reality where she needed to be a peacemaker. Her inventions had to wait.
The guard escorted her to Namor's office, noticeably trailing behind much closer as thought Namor would let her kill him now. She herself knew it wasn't in her hands without a fixed suit and an even playing field away from both their homes.
He looked up from his desk where he was hunched over a hunting knife. A rock the size of an egg sat on a stone slab, carved with serpentine hieroglyphics and icons. Without breaking eye contact, he lowered the knife and began to sharpen it against the rock at a low angle in practiced movements. A clutter of other weapons, some she recognized and some she didn't, littered the desk and shelves around them.
No matter. She had claws.
"Let me go."
He frowned, returning to his knives. "Fen informed me you were feeling better this morning. How is your fever?"
"Let me talk to the Americans."
"We have not had a long-term visitor in some time, so we are out of practice. Are your accommodations suitable?"
She couldn't ignore him anymore, or they would talk in circles even more than they already did. She looked at her nails, hoping to come across too haughty for anymore ridiculous, personal questions. He didn't deserve anymore from her. "They'd be suitable if I was told why I'm kept here, against my will."
She heard the knife still, and looked up in time to see his amber irises beginning to darken.
"'Even if I could leave, I would not'. If you are breaking that promise, inform me now so I can prepare to go to war."
"Namor!" She bristled and slammed a fist down onto the stone slab. It shook under the force of her panther strength. "You don't have to threaten war when I'm asking you a simple question. I was supposed to be back in Wakanda by tonight —"
"A detail you omitted from me initially, if you remember," he said venomously.
I resent that. "— or risk the fury of a global power, and then you make your own decision without explaining how or why. Especially when it involves me!"
"That condition doesn't seem to work both ways. It's also difficult to explain when that opportunity is cut off by an injury."
"I —" Her eyes flicked down to his chest, and then his abdomen. His body seemed to be fine.
He continued. "You assumed dishonorable intentions. Are you doing me the dishonor of deciding my motivations for me?"
Those were the words she had used on Patli. She lowered her hand to her side, swiveling so he couldn't see her face fully.
"That's different." Her voice was quiet. He was insufferable, twisting her words like that. "Am I wrong when you haven't shown me you can be trusted?"
He stood up slowly, a twitch of annoyance marring his face. "No, but why does this 'alliance' entail me explaining every single decision to you, when you went, and still want to, go about things your own way?"
"Because Wakanda is taking on more and risking more for Talokan than we ever have anyone else!" Her shout echoed in the chambers.
Namor looked down his nose at her, his eyes flickering across her face trying to find something in hers. Shuri would not let him see anything but her channeling every bit of frustration outwards. People often minimized her anger as that of a child's. She was shorter than the average Wakandan woman, and most of her life was spent as an easy-going and adventurous person. She never wanted to be seen as formidable before, just intellectually intimidating but fun to be around.
Before.
Her brother's death cleaved her life into two, and Namor into a third. She wanted to be formidable now. So feared that this mutant rued the day he dared trifle with her family. Maybe his time under her spear hadn't been enough. In those moments that stretched like years, she had seen many things flicker across his face: alarm, terror, and finally submission. She could recall each emotion, each twitch of the jaw, with frightening clarity, but she didn't remember fear, the sort of blood-numbing horror that overcame every nerve in one's body. The kind that overtook her when she saw him hovering in front of the Citadel's window, arms swinging with a water grenade.
I'll teach him fear. The minutes crawled by.
He broke the standstill, but instead of a counterargument, it was a second submission. To her.
"I was wrong to attack the Americans. I should give more reason for you to trust me, yes, but you are here on my gratitude, when you would have been more useful on the throne of Wakanda."
She was drowning in a fish tank, because was that his idea of an apology? It was a lackluster one, embedded within some defensive blame and the nonsensical belief he had concocted that she started it, but the roots holding up her anger shifted, just a little bit.
"I need proof." She managed finally. "Tell me what this agreement was, who you made it with, and what the terms were."
She felt she had lost this verbal spar when he showed no hint of surprise, or even satisfaction, at her acquiescence, like he was puppeteering her from afar and she'd simply moved into the position he planned for her.
My rules, she was going to say but what she saw next rendered her utterly speechless.
He had fished something out of his pockets — she didn't know he even had pockets, those shorts were part of his skin for how tight they were - and opened his hand to reveal a small, single black bead.
An earring. Her earring.
The last time words had died in her throat was when she met Toussaint, but that was a different kind of emotional turmoil. This was...madness beyond comprehension.
All of her previous plans crumbled. She hadn't thought far enough to consider what she would do if she stayed — certainly not willingly, as much as coercion counted as such — and had fully been prepared to battle him. He couldn't have sourced this from anywhere but her former security among the Dora, and none of them would give this up on the pain of death and eternal Bast-damnation without good reason.
"It was you, or the blue warrior." He had said. Okoye would spear herself before acting in a way that compromised Wakanda. She gave this to him willingly, and Shuri's empty chest ached with the knowledge that the Midnight Angel carried her keepsakes with her.
He joined her at the other side of his desk, lifting a palm to her shoulder when she attempted to face him.
This was the closest she had been to him outside of battle. She felt as though her spirit was outside her body, her memories not herself, watching but unable to stop his fingers from grazing her earlobe. Out of reflex, her left hand moved to remove the earrings she wore now but the bandages around her arms and elbow stopped her. Instead, he pushed down her palm, uncurled her fingers to have her hold the black earring while he maneuvered around her neck.
She kept her eyes trained on the mural in front of her, the one behind his seat, as he worked. It was the one of his mother cradling a baby in her arms with a joyful smile.
The pads of his thumb and first finger pinched her earlobe to keep it in place, and the gold of his cuffs brushed against her neck. She resisted the urge to close her eyes as he untwisted her jade earring, keeping her palm steady. He carefully placed the jade earring in her hand and picked up the black one. A part of her missed the pressure his fingers impressed on her hands. She tried not to shudder as he slipped the black stud into her piercing and slowly twisted the clasp behind it.
"The woman said you would recognize this." His voice was low, brittle, and she felt his breath fan against her neck. He smelled like salt and fresh water lilies. "I promised that no harm would come to you until you returned to the surface."
She pounced out of his immediate reach. Her jaw wouldn't work properly otherwise. After a shaky inhale, she straightened her back, willing to summon back some of the anger and fire that drove her before. "What about the Americans?"
He rubbed his jaw. His eyes were completely black now, infinite depths she couldn't parse anything in. "A secondary concern, but they too will be fine."
"Okoye believed your word alone?"
"Your word. I told her what you told me — you are an inventor and that you could not restore something without my help." Maybe she imagined it, but his eyes flickered towards the bracelet.
She raised a skeptical eyebrow, hoping it masked her tiny burst of mild panic.