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If there’s one thing Shuri is used to, it’s grown-ass men needing her help.
Her father needed her help. Her brother needs her help. If it comes down to it, probably the entire population of literal Wakanda needs her help on a daily basis because without her technology their standard of living would be significantly lower and also less integrated into the twenty-first century and also they would all be dead from aliens. Just call her Mother Shuri, Patron Saint of Human Disasters. She’s a generous soul.
The ancient, dusty-ass white men sitting in her lab definitely need her help.
Shuri watches them over the course of what is literally months. One of them is pretty boring, actually, because he is frozen and cannot talk or mope or sit around her lab looking like the world is ending. The other does all of the above, which Shuri would have a lot more sympathy for if there had not been international terrorists last month and demon robots the month before that and literal aliens the month before that. Shuri has shit to deal with and youtube drama to catch up on, real fucking problems, the last thing she needs is to walk into her lab and see a fucking dead American icon huddled in a corner of her lab making moon eyes at another fucking dead American icon huddled in a literal human freezer. The only thing that even indicates time is passing is the depression beard, which just keeps growing longer and longer. Shuri gives it another month, then she’s shaving it off and knitting herself a sweater, because it is strangely attractive but regardless she would rather fucking wear it on her skin than have to see it attached to Steve goddamn Rogers for one more day.
And that, more than anything else, is why she does the thing.
“SHURI-FUCKING-WHATEVER THE FUCK YOUR LAST NAME IS.” James Barnes looks like he wants to kill her, except he physically can’t, because his left arm is rotated a hundred and eighty degrees in his shoulder so that he can properly flip her off while the plates of his metal hand are still caught in Steve Rogers’ beard, attached at the wrist. “YOU. THIS IS YOUR DEMONIC DEMON SPAWN. THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM CHILD.” He gestures with his free hand towards his metal hand; his metal hand is also flipping her off now. “FUCKING FIX THIS.”
“I did the thing,” she replies with a single eyebrow raised, “for one reason and one reason only, and that reason is to make the good Captain shave his depression beard.”
“What—” Steve’s face contorts abruptly. “I do not have a depression beard!”
It is a tough argument for him to make as he actively sports his depression beard.
“The plates are not going to detach.” Shuri rolls her eyes and turns to Bucky. “Not until the Captain shaves his beard, at which point they won’t be attached to anything anymore. Make him shave the depression beard.”
“But I’ve kinda grown attached to it.”
“This is not a depression beard.” Steve continues talking indignantly, waving his hand around, which would be more intimidating if he did not have a big metal ‘fuck you’ attached to the bottom of his face by said depression beard. “This is—I haven’t been shaving because I’ve been busy. Saving the world. Fighting crime. Creating my own identity.” He goes to rub at his beard, except he can’t because there is the metal hand in it, so he rubs at the metal hand. Bucky makes a face, like he’s not sure whether or not he should be turned on. “This is a crime fighting beard. A saving the world beard. An I’m exerting my own freedom as an independent man, free from the arbitrary rules I have lived under for so long beard.”
“...The beard of one who has finally moved out from his mother’s basement.”
“Nah, it’s still a depression beard.”
“God damn it! ” Steve turns to storm off dramatically, except Bucky doesn’t get the memo and Bucky is still attached to Steve’s face via his hand, so the two don’t succeed in much beyond severely injuring each other and rattling a few wayward counters for at least five minutes. Shuri wishes for a moment that they weren’t international fugitives, not because they don’t deserve it but because it means she can’t post this on Vine 2.0. “That’s it, you win, I’m shaving it, I’m fucking shaving it—”
“Hang on, how’re you gonna shave it with my goddamn hand attached to it—”
“Then I’ll put the razor in the goddamn hand attached to it and you shave it, James Buchanan Jackoff—”
“Careful,” Shuri intones blandly, turning back to her workspace and busying herself with her brother’s supersuit again. “He can make you do that.”
“Yeah, you hear that, Rogers? You sure you wanna razz the man in charge of your orgasms?”
“Yeah, yeah, fuck you. Give me your knife, you jackass, where the fuck is a goddamn knife—"
“Up your ass, you fucking jerk, right between the stick and your own fuckin’ head.” There’s a fumbling sound as the two clamber onto the elevator. “Gimme a sec, we’re gonna have to get to a bathroom first anyway—”
“Hard to fit my head up my own ass with your entire arm attached to it!”
“All the better to fist you with, Daddy—”
The door closes before Shuri raises her head and mouths confusedly at her reflection in the window—'isn’t it the other way around?’
“Unbelievable,” Shuri breathes to herself as she fiddles with the holographic screens in front of her. “Complete robotic sentience. It won’t listen to my commands. It won’t follow any of the Sergeant’s neural input. It won’t let go of the beard.” She shuts the screen down and it disappears into her Kimoyo bead as she clasps her hands, tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. It’s her first child. Her mother was right, the feeling is like no other. “Truly, the power of love.”
“Love, huh?” A freshly-shaven Steve Rogers smiles serenely at his own reflection in the mirror as he splashes water on his face, significantly calmer and more collected without the facial hair. See? Depression beard. “Y’hear that, Buck? It’s not just us now. Even the beard. Even the hand.” He tilts his head side to side, inspecting his jaw one last time before patting his cheeks and nodding. “Toldja we were an epic love story. ”
“I WILL MURDER YOU.” Bucky screams loudly from where he’s lying on the bathroom floor, robotic hand stubbornly clenched around a ball of disconnected hair, pinned down by the deadweight of a metal arm that no longer gives any fucks. “I WILL SKIN YOU FUCKERS MOUTH TO ANUS AND WEAR YOU INTO BATTLE LIKE JACKETS. I WILL FEED YOU BOTH TO MY GOATS. AND THEN I WILL FEED THE GOATS TO THE KING.” He shakes his free hand in a fist at the sky. Or maybe at Shuri, but she's an optimist. “AND THEN I WILL FEED THE KING TO YOUR DEAD FATHER.”
“I don't think I've ever seen this in my life.” She pulls out a different screen, a glowing projection of a keyboard sliding out under her hands as she begins taking notes. “Artificial intelligence is getting more impressive, of course, but this...I never thought I’d live to see the day.” She wipes away a real tear, because there is nothing more beautiful and fulfilling than cold, dead technology. Her one true love.
“YOU WILL NOT BE ALIVE TO SEE THE REST OF IT.” Bucky tries to stand indignantly, except the metal arm cuffs him over the head and he goes down with a cry of pain and a lot of swear words. “YOUR BEARD. FUCK YOU, ROGERS. FUCK YOU AND YOUR DEPRESSION BEARD. IT’S EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED TO YOUR FUCKING BEARD!”
“I always knew that beard was a real chick magnet.” Steve waves his hand at his boyfriend with a barely concealed grin. “Get it? Magnet? Because the hand is metal and now it’s connected to—”
“GO FUCK YOURSELF.” Bucky buries his head into the crook of his unmoving metal arm and screams. Said unmoving metal arm takes the opportunity to bang its closed fist of beard hair hard against the floor, as if emphasizing the bearer’s emotional torment. “GO FUCK YOURSELF IN A HOLE AND DIE.”
"Anyways, if you wanna get technical, Vision is also artificial intelligence that gained sentience.” Steve leans back and shrugs toward her, hands in his pockets, watching with mild interest as his boyfriend experiences a slow-moving mental breakdown.
“I will not let you detract from the glory of my moment.” Shuri mutters as she pulls out another bead, letting it scan Bucky, the arm, and his position of abject despair. “Tony Stark is dead to me.”
“Don’t get me wrong, he’s dead to me too.” Steve rolls his eyes. “It’s been done, is what I’m saying.”
“YOU’RE BOTH DEAD TO ME.” Bucky fixes his murder eyes on Shuri, which would be more effective if she hadn’t just gotten those murder eyes seven hours ago for eating the last slice of pizza. “FOR GOD’S SAKE, MAKE MY ARM FUNCTIONAL AGAIN.”
“But...but it’s choosing to be uncooperative.” Shuri shakes her bracelet at Bucky so the holograms rattle towards him, then immediately realizes that displaying the control she has over her left wrist is probably not comforting to him at present. “The robotic arm, deciding of its own accord to defend the remnants of your boyfriend’s beard—”
“I DON’T GIVE A RAT’S LEFT TIT WHAT IT CHOOSES, JUST MAKE IT LISTEN!”
“I thought you of all people would’ve appreciated giving the arm freedom over its own decisions, Buck.” Steve bites thoughtfully at his bottom lip. “How soon is too soon to make ‘held-captive-and-brainwashed’ jokes?”
“Sergeant Barnes, perhaps you should consider asking the arm what it wants?” Shuri knows what it wants, of course, because Shuri is omniscient and all-powerful, but she continues to pretend not to because she’s also a little bit of a sadist. “I don’t think I can disconnect it for now, but it does not seem openly hostile. Perhaps if we could appease it somehow...”
“I’M NOT ASKING THE FUCKING DEMON ARM WHAT IT WANTS!”
The fucking demon arm delivers a well-aimed punch to the testicles.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
“Alright, let me try.” Steve kneels down on the floor by Bucky (who is currently curled up in fetal position), tapping lightly on the elbow of the metal arm. The arm rotates a little at the wrist, golden veins glowing intensely as if snapping to attention. “Hey...um, arm? Sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”
The arm says nothing, because it is an arm.
“Right.” Steve seems frighteningly unperturbed, stroking at the clenched fingers tenderly with a smile debatably fonder than the one he gives Bucky himself. “Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re kind of attached to my boyfriend? He’s the one you’re receiving neural input from. And, y’know, the one you just punched in the—yeah.”
The arm continues to stay stubbornly silent, which Shuri can respect. If you’re gonna pull a power move like punching the Winter Soldier in the family jewels with his own arm, you gotta fucking commit.
“Do you mind working with him? At least until we can get you detached?”
There’s a brief moment before the servos of the arm begin whirring and clicking quietly in a complex series of patterns it takes Shuri a moment to identify. When she does, she nearly squeals, because the arm is speaking to her in Xhosa. Her baby’s first words. They’re beautiful. And also really, really inappropriate and surprisingly blasphemous. She couldn’t be more proud.
“It says it will cooperate with the Sergeant.” It didn’t use the word ‘Sergeant’ when it did so, and it also made some unflattering comparisons between the Sergeant and a pile of manure, but Shuri decides against mentioning that when Bucky already looks like he’s ready to crawl back into cryofreeze himself. “However, it doesn’t want to be separated from the hair. Apparently, they’re engaged to be wed.”
Bucky’s head snaps upright.
“Engaged, huh?” Steve bends over and smiles, opening his hand to shake. “Well, congratulations! That’s great news.”
“BULL SHIT!” Bucky begins smashing his head repeatedly against the tile as Shuri continues swiping holographic screens in and out of view. She wonders idly about the logistics of walking her brain child down the aisle. “HOW THE DEVIL IN HELL DID MY ACTUAL LEFT HAND GET ENGAGED BEFORE I DID?!”
“Regardless, if we want the arm to operate properly once more, we will have to find a way to keep the arm in contact with the hair at all times.” Shuri frowns and glances upward to Steve, who is amicably shaking the closed fist of the metal arm as Bucky starts frothing at the mouth. “A bracelet, perhaps?”
“Bracelet fits the bill.” Steve bends over and begins cooing at the arm again in a tone Shuri has heard reserved purely for baby animals. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t even talk to Bucky that way. “What do you think? A bracelet sound good?”
“NO.” Bucky gives him a wide-eyed look of incredulity, slowly and carefully enunciating in a way that even Shuri can interpret: if the Captain doesn’t remember he has a boyfriend, and fast, he will in fact be sleeping on the couch until the end of the fucking line. “I MAY LOVE AND CHERISH YOU OR WHATEVER, ROGERS, BUT IF YOU THINK FOR ONE FUCKING MICROSECOND I’M WEARING A BRACELET OF YOUR GODDAMN BEARD HAIR—”
“Forgive me if I’m mistaken, Sergeant Barnes.” T’Challa’s eyebrows crease as he pauses halfway through the handshake. “Shuri’s newest design for your arm...it feels rather, uh, fuzzy.”
Bucky excuses himself from the room. Two floors below, Shuri and Steve collapse with laughter.