"They will wake up in ten minutes with no memory of what happened. Come, we have to be quick." Nakia grabbed Shuri with her free hand.
Her mind reeled.
She hadn't seen another Wakandan for weeks let alone Nakia. The woman looked worse for wear and thinner than when she lost saw her. Her heart plummeted at the stress lines carved deeply into otherwise glowing skin (her skincare regimen was composed of nothing but water and a simple moisturizer, for Bast's sake). Scrapes and dents littered the shoulder pads of her green and blue suit and a small bag rested at her hip. She was here, alive, and the fever dream that had been the past few weeks screeched to a halt.
Panic bubbled up Shur's throat. She dug her heels into the ground.
"How—Nakia—"
"Hurry, Shuri. Move the guards into the room with me in case someone joins us."
Shuri obeyed, tossing one of the lithe bodies and her spear over her shoulder with ease. Nakia dragged the other one across the stone floor, careful to avoid stray rocks. She spoke in hurried whispers.
"You need to leave. It's dangerous, if they catch you—" There will be war. A foolish recreation of what had happened before replaced in her mind.
But for Nakia to come all this way… had something changed outside? Had something gone terribly wrong? While her mind swarmed with the possibilities, Nakia positioned the bodies onto their backs near the hammock, folding the Talokanils' hands over their abdomens. From afar, they looked like they were taking a nap.
"Listen, Shuri. We have word that America, Germany, and France will attack us next Wednesday."
With the help of her Kimoyo beads announcing both Haiti and Wakandan time, Shuri did quick math and blanched. "Nine days."
Nakia nodded. "We don't have much time. Ross cannot delay them any longer."
"How is Agent Ross negotiating with them? Have the Americans decided to grow a brain?"
Nakia grinned wryly. "They know their hypocrisies, but he is currently the only method of communication to their missing CIA Director."
The idea of Val and Ross married and at one point procreating was an idea Shuri never wanted to ponder on. Her disgust must have shown on her face because Nakia's eyebrows furrowed.
"You spoke to her?"
"I saw all of them."
"Good," the spy nodded. Shuri's hands twitched with a curious bout of annoyance.
"You thought he killed them?"
"The thought crossed our minds," Nakia confessed, "but Okoye was resolute that you would not do them this favor unless their lives were protected. Namor is a bloodthirsty beast, Shuri, and is now telling us he is willing to expose his people to protect Wakanda's status as their protector. He's hiding something."
As Nakia fished into her bag, Shuri's breathing stilled. He was always hiding something behind his tender touches and veiled praises, he was stubborn and acted, not rashly, but always in favor of what he thought was best for Talokan. He was generous but inflexible. Shuri often had to force things out of him but he never lied.
Yet the seed of doubt took root at the back of her mind.
"Sam and the White Wolf found this in Scotland tucked away in a small hotel room." A wad of papers followed the sound of rustling. "The android didn't have many possessions but there are traces of his touch and gamma radiation on this."
She cradled the papers with tender hands. They were frayed with the constant touches of someone who loved them, and its owner, very much. It was a property deed. A little heart in red enclosed the words in the middle, a note to the woman Vision loved. She met Wanda thrice, and twice was in the heat of battle. The last time was at Tony Stark's funeral. She could count the words they exchanged on her two hands but remembered with a startling clarity the pleading look on the witch's face as she begged a teenager to save Vision, to extract the stone from his head so there could be one less casualty of war.
This was why Shuri was a scientist. An engineer, the inventor. The Avengers had come to her to help a robot that developed a heart, and she never turned her back on those that needed her gifts. She failed him once; they all did. She did not know Wanda but she knew loss. And that was enough.
"Please find him, Shuri."
She looked into Nakia's eyes. "You're not taking me back?"
"I would if I had it my way." Her answer flooded Shuri with relief. To avoid war, she told herself. "Okoye is trusting of your judgment to remain here but she is a former Dora. I am your War Dog, but also like your sister."
"You are my sister."
Nakia drowned her in a hug, careful to avoid crushing the papers in her hand. "You smell like seafood."
"Tell me about it." Shuri squeezed her eyes, savoring the feel of her arms and memorizing every curve. "How are Toussaint and the others?"
"Eagerly awaiting your arrival home."
She was always welcome in Haiti, but Wakanda was her home. Her eyes watered thinking about the boisterous boy, the Dora Milaje, the Wakandan skyline, and even the Jabari thumping their chests. "What about you? Have officially returned to the War Dogs?"
Nakia released her, smiling. "Only until M'Baku reinstates Okoye as general."
"I'm going to burn down his carrot garden," Shuri muttered under her breath, and then, with a pained voice, "You need to leave. If they see you, it will ruin everything."
Nakia closed her eyes. "I don't want to leave you here."
"Please, Nakia."
The spy inhaled deeply. "Keep those plans hidden. Ross said there should be an American scientist who has previous experience with Vision and the witch's magic among the hostages, if they didn't change their expedition plans before he was arrested. She can help."
"You don't trust me to build a gamma ray detector on my own?"
"Not without this." Nakia gifted her an extra Kimoyo bead. Its sigils glowed red and an array of screens flickered to life, containing a number of blueprints of American technology. The last screen displayed a half-completed neuron-reprogramming cascade, one she instantly recognized as her work before the Snap. The holographic map of Vision's brain rotated above them. Having been rendered moot, his information had been discarded from her current set of beads, needing them afresh for herb-related research. "It also contains a small aquatic vibranium fly. Once you find his location, release this into the waters above. We will receive the information once the fly is near the surface."
A distant groan from behind them punctured her reverie. Shuri moved to drag Nakia outside.
"You need to go!"
"Usisi, I need to know." Nakia put a palm up to Shuri's face, halting them in their footsteps. "Is he treating you well?"
She looked down at herself. The purple tracksuit was fully frayed at the sleeves now; her hair was in disarray, not having fixed it after her latest journey into the city. The watersuit often did its job too well and sucked the moisture out of her skin, leaving her as dry as a prune. She looked worse than she felt. The Talokanil treated her honorably, as much as they could for someone who caused an explosion and harmed one of their own.
"Very well, Nakia." She said firmly. When Nakia shot her a skeptical look, she added, "You know how I get when I'm busy with my projects."
The familiar swish of an impending arrival through the lake echoed through the catacombs. Shuri shoved Nakia's gifts into her pockets and hoisted her up into an alcove, whispering, "I'll distract them."
The spy clambered upwards, shielded by a row of stalagmites, just as the guards stumbled to their feet. Shuri spun around, schooling her face into one of distant concern. Her heart thumped inside chest. Outside the room, someone sloshed out of the lake.
One of them, a middle-aged woman named Tayanna, rubbed her eyes. Confusion lingered in her chestnut eyes as she bubbled through her mask, "How did I get here?"
Shuri scratched her head, willing her shaky voice to still. "Ah, Namor and I were talking and needed privacy."
A believable lie, but it would only feed rumors or whatever notions the guard had about Namor's supposed favor on her.
After a couple moments, the guards looked at each other and shrugged. She pivoted on her heel, trying to suppress a fleeting glance to where Nakia was huddled. There was no sign of her, to her relief. She skidded to a stop outside the room. Her eyes landed on a hulking figure and his familiar back. Namor was languidly walking towards the cabin, his ears twitching at her rapid intake of breaths.
He didn't turn around, grinding his staff into the ground.
She needed to get him out of here. "I —what are you doing here?"
The grip around his staff loosened. He turned his face to the side, enough that she could admire his striking jawline and thick eyebrow. She had clawed that cheek, once.
"Did you not tell me I may visit my cabin as needed?"
She rubbed her hands together. "Yeah, but, eh, is there something I can help with?" Stupid. In no universe would she rationally follow up their argument with an offer to help the god-King . Luckily for her, her rationality decided to make an appearance only after the fact.
Namor turned around, examining her carefully. Waiting with a bated breath, she almost expected him to leap over her head and rip Nakia out of her hiding place.
"I chastised you too harshly."
"What?" she blinked. Embarrassing. Get a grip.
He frowned, sliding his gold-cuffed hand down his staff.
"The Feathered Serpent never regrets actions or words done for the sake of Talokan." The realization dawned on her slowly as he continued to speak. "However…you are not the leader of Wakanda at the moment, so my ire was ill-directed."
Her anger towards him had been fully subsumed by the joy and worry at seeing Nakia so there was little to remember by way of what they'd argued about just half an hour prior. She looked at her feet, then back at him.
"Leader or not, I will never agree with the actions you took, and your brutal methods."
"No."
"But, I didn't lie when I said I admired what you had built here." She straightened her shoulders. "I still do."
They were at a stalemate in a fabric woven so tightly that she could not unwind herself out of it if she tried. This was the moment where in those Netflix movies, the protagonist would distract with a kiss—a convenient plot drawn around to push a burgeoning romance forward.
But she was not a protagonist of a romantic comedy. She was an orphan trying to keep the surface and water worlds from perpetual war. She was also a young woman on the precipice of feelings she could barely begin to ascertain. The impetus that drove her the night before was a blowtorch's initial flare. It would take time before it settled down into something more constant and nurturing, without the threat of burning or being burned.
She thought fast. Something believable, but something sincere too. The idea of lying to Namor was as unappealing as the thought of him keeping secrets. There was an implicit understanding and respect underlying each of their moves. no matter how far they escalated.
"Do you have time tonight?"
He looked at her, incredulous and smug.
"Not—I—do you want to fix your foot?" She cursed under her breath. "Or me, fix your foot. In my lab."
"Now?" he drawled. Bast-forsaken accent.
"I finished Juana's prosthetic arm yesterday and it grafted nicely with her skin. The machine is ready to stimulate organic growth, and it would be beneficial to try it before I take it for a run in mapping the flower."
Her head tilted upwards as he drew closer. Confidence in her work propelled her to continue.
"I know you're suspicious of my technology. You have every right to be. I understand that its been used to threaten your people and many others. The threat of nuclear war, well, no one's appreciated that." She swallowed, the urgency to distract Nakia fading to the background. "You don't like me thanking you, so let me do something in return for considering to help us and in the process allowing more potential threats to come your way."
He was so much larger than her. His shoulders and face towered over her, swallowing her whole body in his shadow, as he stopped a mere pace away. "It is not a favor to return an offer owed to Talokan."
She jutted her chin out. "Some would call that noble."
He slipped into the water, waiting as she slipped into her watersuit. "Where are your guards?"
She hid her face under the material of the watersuit. "We were…cleaning up the old room, since Juana was there for a while."
He opened his mouth to call for them but she shook her head. Nakia could slip past the guards and Shuri didn't know what the effects of Nakia's weapon were, if they were still groggy or confused. If their story conflicted with hers, Namor was not above threatening her into giving Nakia's location and tearing the cave apart himself.
"I don't need them if I'm with you." When her face reemerged in the helmet, he was already submerged.
Namor almost turned around three times and it was only when Shuri threatened to cut him up into sushi (how that would work, she had no idea) that he seemed to humor her and let her lead him into the lab. Or rather, allow himself in first, because he was the Feathered Serpent God who followed no master. Regardless, Shuri left him to float while she grabbed the required equipment and activated her Kimoyo beads. The one Nakia gave her was securely in her tracksuit pocket,. Her brief encounter with the woman felt like a dream. She prayed to Bast she'd made it out alive. Nakia was nothing if not a wily woman with a talent of escaping enclosed spaces unscathed.
"Lift your leg up." Shuri paused in her maneuvering to add, "It's a request."
Namor remained silent throughout the whole ordeal. He growled when she removed the gold and metal cuffs around his foot, hissed when she drew a vial of his blood and injected a vibranium alloy into the stump of a wing, and frowned when she rerouted blood vessels to the injured area.
"Oxygen is vital for healing, but this should help," she provided as an explanation. Few had patience for the mad scientist and less so for the technicalities behind it. All most people wanted to know was that it worked, but she felt alone without her assistants, or at least her brother hovering over her, providing unwarranted commentary. She couldn't hold back a laugh.
"Is this humorous to you?" Namor shifted his body, hooking his staff onto the edge of a table so he wouldn't float away.
One of her hands massaged the tender flesh around his left ankle, close to the baby wing, another of many firsts only she could claim. Since Wakanda was open now, writing research papers for the public was no longer out of the question. If she ever got the chance, and Talokan's name was made public, she would begin with Talokanil healing and medicine.
"I was thinking about my brother. He often joined me in the lab when he needed to escape from the elders."
"A king does not 'escape' from the needs of his people."
She pinched his stump. Hard. He yelped.
"Sorry," she said, not meaning it at all.
Some of his skin was tough around the area where the wing sprouted right above the bony protrusion of his fibula. The rest of his foot was calloused yet soft; she had yet to look at what kept Talokanil skin impervious to bloating from perpetually living in water. Either way, it wasn't fair. In water, this close, it was preposterous to deny that Namor was beautiful. Not simply handsome, in the way of boy bands or celebrity actors, but a sort of aesthetic godliness only the divine could bestow. Sinewy muscles embedded in soft ochre flesh stopped at his knees, only to continue around them and disappear into the hem of his shorts. One of his thighs were thicker than her two arms together, but it wasn't the bulky build of Steve Rogers or Thor. He was graceful, in a way. His abdomen flexed as she poked and prodded her way around his right foot, limiting her indulgent glances to twice a minute.
To be honest, she would wear shorts too if she looked like him.
"You speak more openly of your brother now. Do you see him with the ancestors?"
She didn't know what possessed her to answer honestly. Perhaps to compensate for all the lies she might have to tell him. "No."
"Death is not the end for your people. He sees you, if you do not see him."
She pulled her fingers away from him, eyes flashing. "Don't speak of things you don't know." Killmonger was still gone. She saw no one in her sleep, only a repetition of nightmares and a drowning city and a man she spared —
Namor's hand curled into her gloved one. He tilted his head, looking at her not unlike he'd done long ago, when he treated her as gentleman courting a lady would, toured her around his city, and shared with her in hushed tones why he was offering what he did as if they were souls aligned in grief and hope and not discussing the casual need to slaughter the scientist who'd inadvertently threatened his people.
"Join me tomorrow morning in the ancestors' room. I would enjoy your company." He let go of his staff and grasped her other arm, pulling her close. "Wear the white dress," he murmured.
"I can't wear it in this suit. It'll get wrinkled and it's uncomfortable."
"I am partial to wrinkles."
He was madness, and in her efforts to reign him back, she was being roped in too. If her helmet wasn't on, she wasn't sure if she wouldn't have embraced him at that moment. She cleaned up the lab and told him to keep his weight off of his right foot overnight. Griot estimated that the wing would grow to full size within twelve hours. When he swam to escort her back to the catacombs, she shook her head, formulating a schedule for the next day and running through calculations an exorbitant number of times to relax.
"There's nowhere I could go, anyway." She teased. "I could escape but I won't."
"A Queen does not escape either." He nodded and left.
The rough edges of his ankle that he'd become familiar with over the weeks tingled. Namor lifted his fingers and the electricity stayed with him; it was not his ankle, but his wishful heart, wondering what fate Chac had planned for him to swing him into her arms again and only to take her away just as quickly.
Shuri stopped by the prison-cave that night.