Work Text:
This is ridiculous. Stultifying.
Those were the only adjectives Shuri could fathom to describe the contents of the American periodicals Ms. Marvel had proudly spread out on her countertops the last time the Princess visited her. Brimming with absurd “he loves me, he loves me not”s and liplock spiels, she remembered immediately shoving them to the back of the teenager's shelf. That was half out of consideration for Kamala's impressionable mind, half because the issue was expired anyway. In any case, she assured herself it was unrelated to the unsettling way it awakened her latent curiosity, causing her mind to wander erratically to a well-known Australian universal shaper. Coming back with a tray of beverages in her hand, Kamala paused her cheery stroll upon noticing the new location of her magazines. Shuri feigned ignorance.
"This is good, Kamala." Shuri took a sip from a silly purple straw before using it to swirl around the Merigold-colored juice in her cup. "How did you know I liked mangos?" That was enough to steer the conversation away. Kamala's head snapped to the Wakandan royal, elated with her approval. Standing a little straighter and having her chest puffed, she explained how it's "Kairi ka Sharbat," a homemade drink she often makes with her mother. Shuri smiled then, both in contentment with the cool Pakistani beverage and in her victory at avoiding the subject. With that, those silly Love Dove magazines were out of sight, out of mind.
But in more present times, when she found herself on his couch watching older American films, her brain couldn't help randomly spitting back out the magazine excerpts on kissing and testing the waters. She suddenly became extremely conscious of how a reclined Eden's arms were breaths away from her shoulders and nape. Once confined to specific pages, the printed ink was now inconsiderately bouncing around her mind like ping-pong balls. The horrors of having such a brain like hers, surely.
"Why not," she mused to herself, finally surrendering to the thoughts. It was for science. She was merely only peer-reviewing.
Now that his head was angled toward her and his focus was on the moving pictures in front of them, she was gifted the perfect opportunity. His distracted eyes gleamed with excitement as he tracked each movement of the protagonist during his valiant fight. Left hook, right hook. His brows lifted slightly with each blow of the hero's soaring foot or fist. It was adorable how taken he was. He did tell her how enthusiastic he was at the beginning of his "hero" career. At least, that was before it was swiftly dampened by the harsh, crushing realities of its price, such as not being able to save everyone — losing friends. Nonetheless, his zest for action and adventure remained. While the uncertainties spurred by a storm of trauma clouded it a little, it always managed to shine through. She recognized herself in it, remembering her own idealistic feelings and youthful cravings.
Before she could stop herself, her lips brushed against his earlobe. Eden jolted forward, wrenched out of his immersion and taken aback by the sensation. As she feigned reaching for the almost-spilled popcorn, she could feel his eyes practically boring holes into her temple.
She leaned back, eyes trained on the screen. A little lipstick smudge on his ear was the only trace of her crime.
The time it took for him to relent and finally avert his gaze seemed to rival the time she spent on the Djalia. Whatever questions he clearly thought didn't make it past the gate of his lips. He relented them.
Eden was a thoughtful, laid-back guy. But she was a daring, challenging girl. Shuri leaned forward to press a fleeting kiss into his neck without sparing a moment more. Needless to say, she did not take the way out he momentarily granted her.
"Shuri?" She looked up to meet his confused, flustered gaze. He was leaning back now, his arm hovering over the couch's back. Eden's eyelashes were batting now, eyes alit with an unspoken question. “Did you just kiss me?” Was surely it, but he did not speak it. So she did not have to answer it.
"I was cold." Shuri said plainly, holding up the throw bunched up in her fist. She slid it from just underneath his arm. The mask that greeted him was a poker face, and the most intense staring contest she'd ever had with a person followed. It looked like he was debating whether he should press, but much to her relief and mild disappointment, he once again dropped it.
When they resumed their position, he sat more upright, jaw taut and brow furrowed. Again, her eyes floated over to him and roamed. Adrenaline practically sparkled through her, daring her to push her luck once more. When she quickly leaned over to plant a sneaky kiss along his mandible, she was startled by the feel of his hand on her chin.
The upward tilt his fingers gave effectively altered her lips' collision course, their path steering from his lower jaw to his mouth. Before she could process anything, a surprised “murph!” slipped her lip, stifled by his. He must have taken Black Widow's espionage class. That wasn't so much of a stretch; he had worked under Nick Fury before. She deduced that he had strategically kept a weakening drug between his molars and subsequently transferred it to her mouth. Yes, that must be it. She thought the last time he popped a popped kernel into his mouth was a little off. What else could explain her brain fog and limb limping? Her crumbling spine did no good in sustaining her body, so he became her support beam, his firm hand pressing into and scaling her back.
Unable to comprehend the overwhelming sensation of heat clawing from her abdominal core to across her face, her fluttering mind instead took note of how his salted flavor complemented her mouth's current taste of caramel. Thanks to their preferred flavor of popcorn, no doubt. Speaking of which, the tins had ended up scattered all over his floors, the caramel and butter-salted popcorn strewn out and intermingling. Snatching her gaze away from her unconscious counting of kernels, he altered the way their mouths slotted against one another, shifting from vertical to diagonal. If she wasn't already completely inebriated by his kiss, the small exhale of a sigh from his nose did the trick." It was from the carbon dioxide," her clouding frontal lobe spat out the last desperate scientific explanation it could muster before becoming caput. The instant his palm made contact with the crevice between her hip and waist, her overworked and ever-coping mind cut off.
Although it wasn't exactly their first kiss, it felt like the first of something. It wasn't the shy pecks or sweet presses she became almost accustomed to; it was something else. “Oh.” She dumbly thought. Another cupping of her lip. “Oh.”
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me. Fool me thrice…" He murmured after pulling away, his thumb brushing against her bottom lip as light as a feather. She couldn't help but gape at him, lips parted from his kiss and her bafflement. He pressed another, lighter kiss to her open mouth. She quickly closed it, and the chitter of her teeth clasping reverberated in their ears. Laughter and cognizance poured from his maple eyes like syrup.
“Not that I'm complaining —believe me, I'm not— but what encouraged that?” He gave that boyish grin she loved a little bit too much. Her eyelids drooped.
“... Ms. Marvel's Love Me Love Me Not Magazine. 6th edition.” She mumbled out her embarrassing honesty before her brain could filter out the facts or sidestep the question. His eyebrows twitched, but his smile widened, unveiling his dimples.
“Haha, what?”