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Shuri’s freezing. The stupid heater in the cabin wouldn’t work and the maintenance man won’t be there to fix it until the next morning. Even in all her layers and the thick blanket wrapped snugly around her body, she’s still cold.
She regretted ever saying yes to a ski trip. Her brother and his wife thought it would be fun to spend a week in Switzerland. It’s for the experience, they said.
“We’re young, free! Let’s live a little,” Nakia had told her. “Besides, none of us has ever skied. There’s a first time for everything.”
Shuri had been hesitant but for some Bast forsaken reason she’d allowed them to wear her down and she ultimately agreed. Now here she was, alone and freezing in the god-damn Swiss mountains because T’Challa and Nakia’s flight from Japan had been delayed. They were there on some diplomatic trip Shuri couldn’t be bothered to ask the details about.
“Stupid snow mountain, stupid Nakia, stupid T’Challa. Stupid fucking Shuri for agreeing to come to this hellish place,” she mutters under her breath as she heads down the stairs. There’s a fireplace in the living room. She would sleep next to it for the night.
When she gets to the end of the stairs, Shuri can see a faint orange glow coming from the living room that could only be coming from the fireplace. Immediately, she’s on alert. She isn’t the one who turned it on, and she knows her brother and Nakia haven’t arrived yet. There’s someone else in the cabin with her. Either that, or it’s haunted but Shuri doesn’t believe in ghosts.
As quietly as possible, she removes the blanket that’s wrapped tightly around her and drops it on the stairs behind her. She needs freedom of movement if she’s going to confront the intruder. Tiptoeing quietly, she grabs the fire poker that’s leaning against the wall and grips it tightly. She begins slowly, quietly, inching into the living room where she sees a figure hunched over in front of the fireplace.
“I’m giving you five seconds to leave this place before I beat you to death with this poker!” she yells, startling the intruder who turns around with wide eyes.
“Woah there, Princess!” the man says in accented English, holding his hands up. “I mean no harm.”
“Do not call me Princess,” she snaps, gripping the poker tighter. “Who are you? And how did you get in here?”
The man stands up and Shuri instinctively takes a step backwards.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Princess,” he says. “Promise. I am Namor, Prince of Talokan.”
“Namor… Prince of… Talokan?” Shuri’s brows furrow. Talokan is like a sister nation to Wakanda, both being the only two nations with natural vibranium deposits. She’d heard of the underwater nation many times and had even met the King and Queen of Talokan on multiple occasions when they visited her mama and baba. She knew there was a prince around her brother’s age, but she had never seen him. He never accompanied his parents on any diplomatic trips.
“You expect me to believe you?” Shuri scoffs. “I’ve met Talokanils. They cannot breathe the air I am currently allowing you to enjoy. Furthermore, you are not blue.”
This, it seems, is funny because the man bursts out laughing.
“Forgive me, Princess. It seems you have not heard much about me,” he says, reaching to take off the thick, woolly beanie on his head, revealing pointed ears that reminds Shuri of the Christmas elves she saw in movies as a child. He raises a foot and she’s shocked to see downy white wings fluttering by his ankles.
“I am not blue like my people, that much is true, and I can breathe on land and underwater. I am what you surface people would call a mutant,” he tells her.
She raises her eyebrow, trying to keep her expression hard as she pushes away the feeling of guilt that wants to rise at his revelation. She can’t imagine what it is like to be so wholly different from the rest of your people.
“That tells me nothing, intruder,” she retorts. “How did you get in here? Do not make me ask again.”
“Feisty. I like it, Princess,” Namor grins, his teeth too white and perfect. “Your brother invited me. For bonding, he said. One future ruler to a next.”
That does sound like her brother, Shuri thinks. But she needs more proof.
“I’ll need more proof than that,” she says, holding her ground despite the fact that she’s beginning to shiver again and desperately needs to get in front of the fireplace Namor is currently blocking.
“Here,” he says, using one hand to dig something out of his back pocket while keeping his other hand raised as if trying not to alarm her any further. “It’s my passport.” He throws a little green book at her which she catches with ease.
“Hmph,” she huffs, tucking the poker underneath her arm and opening the little book. It looks legitimate and it clearly has his title as Prince of Talokan in it.
“Very well,” she says, throwing the passport back. “You’re in the clear for now but try anything funny and I’ll skewer and roast you like a fish.”
Namor grins, catching the passport before settling back down by the fireplace, rubbing his hands together. Shuri is too cold to be reluctant about anything and quickly makes her way over to sit cross-legged next to him. The heat of the fire provides relief and Shuri sighs, inching closer to the crackling flames than she should.
“The heater is broken,” she tells him. “They won’t be able to fix it until tomorrow so for now this is our only source of heat.”
“I gathered that. I didn’t know anyone else was here,” he responds, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I would have introduced myself when I came.”
Shuri eyes him curiously now that she’s that close. His skin is a rich, smooth brown and his eyes were the colour of freshly brewed coffee. The flames illuminate his face and Shuri notices, for the first time, the jade piercing running through his septum and the large jade earrings resting in his ears.
“Does the jade not get cold?” she asks curiously, jerking her chin towards him.
“Not really,” he says, shaking his head. “What of your Kimoyo earrings?”
“Not really.”
Shuri looks back towards the flames and sighs, shoulders sagging. She’s beginning to warm up now but she was dead tired. She pulls her knees up and rests her head on it.
She hears shuffling beside her and makes note that Namor has moved. A few moments later, he returns and holds out a warm blanket to her.
“Here,” he says. “You look like you need this.”
“Thanks,” she mutters, reluctantly accepting the blanket. She drapes it around her shoulders and burrows herself in its warmth. It’s much better than the one she’d packed. “What about you?”
“The cold bothers me, yes, but not quite as much as I expect it does for you. Just sitting here is fine,” he says.
“So how does it work? Breathing air and water? Do you have gills like the rest of your people?”
“Inquisitive, are we? Your brother did say you were a scientist at heart.”
Shuri blushes. For a moment, she forgot herself.
“Sorry,” she mumbles. “I was just curious.”
Namor laughs. “That’s fine. I breathe air the way you do. When I am underwater, my body gets oxygen from the water through my skin. I get oxygen through my skin on land as well.”
“Like diffusion?”
“Like diffusion,” he confirms.
“Fascinating,” she whispers. “And you’re the only one that can do that?”
“That we know of, yes,” he confirms.
Shuri is intrigued. She asks him every and anything she can about his abilities, Talokan and his adventures around the world. Apparently, he’s swam through every sea and ocean and had a pet blue whale named Kan. In return, she tells him of Wakanda. She tells him about her lab and her inventions and the new panther suit she was building for her brother.
Shuri doesn’t know how long they sit there talking but sleep eventually takes over because the next time Shuri is aware, it’s morning and she’s distinctly aware that her face is pressed into something firm and warm. She ends up burrowing closer, chasing that warmth. It is when she hears a soft groan that she freezes.
Shit, she thinks, because she knows what this is. She’s seen the Hallmark movies, she knows exactly what this is.
“Are you finally awake?” she hears Namor ask, his morning voice deep and groggy. She gasps, startled. She was planning to sneak away while he slept.
“Yes,” she mumbles. She closes her eyes, face heating up in embarrassment.
Namor rolls onto his back so that her face is no longer pressed to his chest but other than that, neither of them move. Shuri is now tucked against his side, her head resting on his arm and the blanket thrown over their legs and torsos.
“Your brother called earlier,” he says. “Their flights have been cancelled.”
“Oh,” Shuri mumbles. She doesn’t know what else to say. She’s a little flustered, for what reason, she doesn’t know.
“You know,” Namor says after a few heartbeats of silence. “It would be a shame to let this cabin go to waste. It’s already been paid for… and we are here.”
Shuri knows immediately what he’s suggesting and her cheeks warm. A week alone with a man she just spent the night apparently cuddling…
“What do you say, Princess?”
“Call me princess one more time and see what I do,” Shuri grumbles, pinching his side which elicits a hearty laugh from him.
She deliberates for a moment before relenting.
“Well, we’re already here,” she says. “Might as well enjoy it.”
They continue to lie there for a while, neither of them speaking, and Namor’s breathing is so even that she thinks he’s sleeping again. Curiously, Shuri raises her head to look down at him, only to find him awake and staring at her. She yelps and begins to scramble away when he pulls her back down and on top of him.
Shuri feels something hot pooling in her belly, and she thanks Bast her dark skin would not betray the deep blush she knew was spreading from her cheeks to her neck.
“What are you doing?” she asks, but it comes out more like a whisper, her breathing uneven.
“I think you know,” he smirks, coffee eyes boring into hers. Instinctively, Shuri’s tongue darts out to lick her lips and its only moments later that he leans up, pressing his warm lips to hers.
Her eyes close on their own, her body moving on autopilot as she adjusts herself so that she’s straddling his lap. His hands find their way to her slim waist and she giggles when he bites her bottom lip. She’ll find some time to be embarrassed about that later when his tongue isn’t down her throat so for now, she focuses on the softness of his lips and the need she feels building inside her. His hands are sliding from her waist down to her ass when a sharp knock on the cabin door startles them apart.
“Maintenance!” they hear someone call from outside the door.
Blushing at the fact that they got carried away, Shuri begins to detach herself from the prince underneath her but his large hand circles her wrist gently.
“Leave it,” he says, eyes ablaze with want. “Let them come later.”
“As much as I would like that,” Shuri says, clearing her throat. “I don’t think I want us sleeping on the floor by the fireplace for the remainder of this trip.”
There’s amusement dancing in his eyes. “And where would we sleep, Princess?”
Shuri lets her smile spread as she stands and adjusts her pyjamas.
“My bed. Or yours. I’m not picky,” she says, leaving him as she goes to open the door. She can hear him laughing behind her.
She lets the maintenance man in and goes to take a morning shower. Thank Bast the hot water was at least working. She dresses warmly and comes back down to find that Namor had done the same thing. The two of them spend some time on the couch, sitting on opposite sides with their backs against the armrests, their sock covered feet touching.
They decide to order in breakfast while the maintenance man fixes the heater and the pair pick up their exchange of information from where they had left off the previous night, enjoying the spread of food laid out on the coffee table.
“I’m just saying, I think I could modify a panther suit to be used in Talokan,” Shuri says, taking a bite out of her cinnamon-raisin bagel that she slathered in cream cheese and warm, spiced syrup. “I could probably incorporate some of your technology too. Those masks your people wear to breathe on land. I could reverse engineer the design and create something that allows me to breathe underwater.”
“I see now your brother was not exaggerating when he mentioned your brilliance,” he says, reaching across to swipe some cream cheese from the corner of her mouth. Shuri nudges him lightly with her foot when her sticks his finger in his mouth and eats it.
“Say, my brother seems to mention me a lot to you, doesn’t he?” Shuri asks, her suspicions growing.
“Always,” he says. “He loves you dearly and I now see why.”
Shuri smiles, shaking her head.
“I think, Namor, that we’ve been tricked,” Shuri chuckled. She didn’t think T’Challa had it in him.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think he or Nakia intended to be on this trip. I think they are trying to set us up,” she giggled. She couldn’t believe she fell for his trap, but she truly wasn’t complaining. She watches Namor’s face as the realization hits him and he doubles over, laughing.
“Well, I can’t say I’m complaining,” he eventually says, grinning. “I suppose I’d have to send a gift of thanks to my future brother-in-law.”
“Slow down, fish boy,” Shuri laughs. “Maybe take me on an actual date first?”
“You’ll regret calling me that,” Namor says but there’s only amusement in his voice.
“Please. What will you do about it?”
“You will see,” he says, moving towards her like a predator stalking his prey.
“Wait,” she says, trying to scramble away, half of her bagel still in hand. “You can’t!” she giggles as he pounces on her and his fingers begin attacking her sides. “My bagel! Please!”
She’s in the middle of a fit of laughter when someone clears their throat. They look up to see the maintenance man standing there with his toolbox and an awkward expression on his face.
“The heater’s been fixed.” he says. “Once again we apologize for the inconvenience, and we do hope you enjoy the rest of your honeymoon.”
The thank you that Shuri was about to say gets stuck in her throat and she watches with shock as he takes his leave.
“Now that we’re alone,” Namor begins from above her. “How about we finish where we left off before we were interrupted… wife.”
Shuri grins, shaking her head.
“Oh, fuck it,” she says, tossing the half-eaten bagel towards the coffee table with the rest of the food. Shuri hoped it would land on a plate but, as she pulls Namor down to seal their lips together again, she could tell you truthfully that she didn’t really care where the damn bagel ended up.