T'challa/Rogue
The dark green cloak hood hangs long and heavy around white bangs and brown hair.
She ducks her head, and pulls the hood low over her forehead, hides her skin in the shadows. The crowd pushes and pulls at her body, draws her into the mass of bodies, fills her senses with the noise of their whispers and their words, and she hears one word in twenty in a language she knows. The market heat beats down on the top of her cloak, heavy on her body, weighed down by the garment covering her from head to toe. But there's no shadows in the crowded market square, no other place to tuck herself away from the danger of prying eyes.
Someone pushes against her back, and when she pulls away, she feels the drag of the heavy fabric falling away, falling away from the crown of her head.
Her hand snaps up, pulls it back, and she feels her breath catching her lungs, feels the pounding of her heart thudding away like a thousand drums in the centre of her chest.
She fists her hands in the fabric, holding the hood tight around her head, lifts up her shoulders, and pushes her way through the crowd. Forces her way through the mashing of human bodies without lifting her eyes from the brief glimpses of concrete ground between their feet. Goes from the path through them without a care from the blind steps she takes.
Her pulse is a raging chorus in her ears.
Her chest hurts with the desperation of it.
Her hands curl around the edge of the fabric hood and push into her palms, leaving little nailmarks where her fingers push through to the skin.
There's a break. A glimpse, through the maze of body, of dusty gold wall.
Her shoulders are too thin to push apart the people in front of her. She has cracks, spaces, finds them with the fresh aim of having that point, that goal, that space free of bodies and people, and she----
Stumbles. Into an alley, a pathway; whatever it is, it doesn't matter. The space is free, open. She can move her lungs. She can bend her knees and brace her hands on her legs and let her head fall down by her chest and breath. There's space to breath.
The heat's not so bad in the alley. There's a little bit of shade, the sun's blocked by the buildings on either side and she raises her chin up, lets the rabric of the cloak hood fall back just enough, the light falling her on her cheeks as she closes her eyes.
Too close. Too many people. She feels them still, feels them like an itch under the gloves around her hands, feels the press underneath the billowing cloak, how the bodies pushed against her and how close they came to skin. Her eyes are pulled open, her gaze turned down to the heavy cloak she wears. It may be impractical in this heat, bought for a country far north, with far more snow, and it leaves her sweating through her clothes underneath. But her face is the only bit of skin that takes in the sun.
Enclosed.
And here in the alley she breathes freely, and pulls the hood back from her face, and lets the sun hit her skin.
Stark white bangs hang low on her face, framing cheeks that have been full in the past and now are too hollow, too close to the bone. Her frame is thin, and her legs shake, and she holds herself up for the breathing. Her hands fumble underneath her cloak for the small bottle of water on her waist, too light, too warm, to be refreshing. All she has. All she can chug down is the brief swallow of stale warm water that's clinging to the plastic sides.
"You don't have to run."
A gentle accented voice in the confined space of the alley, and the echos set her pulse into a raging bass line. Her neck snaps as she twists her head around, eyes wide.
He stands at the enterence to the alley way, a soft leather jacket over his shoulders, his hair cropped short and his eyes cast in bright reflection by the sun. His hands down by his sides, he is framed behind by three women with strong arm muscles exposed to the summer heat. He steps forward, and she steps back, and feels the hot air stick up her lungs, clog up her throat. There's no space, not enough space, and he keeps walking towards her, keeps pressing her back in. The women follow him. The alley is crowded, so crowded.
Her hands are up in front of her, and she's not sure when the gloves came off, they're just off, and she's holding them out like the barrier they are, shaking in front of her body.
Her voice cracks as she speaks.
"A'h don't care that'cha said mah words, Ah'm not signing up fa jail."
He stops.
The whole world stops.
And she.... she....
Since the moment she realized what her touch did to people, what her skin did to people, since she named herself Rogue and ran away from the life of Marie, she has known what the reality of the words on her skin meant. That she was bound to someone, there was someone out there whose soul was bound forever with hers, and she would never touch them. She would never kiss them. Their souls were bound together in one, and she would never, ever, touch them.
They would never bound.
And now he stands in front of her and holds out his hands her and smiles and wears the face of a man who signed away the lives of her and her brethren.
She falls back, and her body is pressed against the wall.
His smile twists into an expression of hurt.
"T'Challa," there's a warning in the woman's voice, and Rogue can't keep her eyes on one alone of the threatening figures. "Perhaps it is as your father thought."
"I will not abandon my soulmate to Stark's wrath." The man snaps, and Rogue can't help the flinch at his voice, and the women notice, she knows they notice, but he doesn't, he doesn't. "Irregardless of my father's opinion on my lack of sexual desire, I will not leave her to struggle on her own."
Then he turns to her, and he smiles, and Rogue thinks of the king of Wakanda who addressed the nation's of the world, frozen through his grief as he spoke of forcing all superhumans to register.
"It is my apologies that I am not the soulmate you may have wanted. I have no desire to marry, or take a consort. Perhaps you might allow me to offer you sanctuary in my kingdom, at least until this manhunt for mutants ceases."
"She is your soulmate, sire." The word form the woman is a half whisper, carried by the little bit of wind. "I doubt you will be able to hold that kind of promise."
T'Challa turns his head towards the woman who spoke so harshly, a familiar smile on his face. "I recognize that asexuality is a western word in itself, Nanali, but surely you can listen to your king when he says he is not interested in such things."
When he looks at Rogue, his brown eyes are twinkling with amazement.
There's a gap between them, and he leaves those few steps open as he holds out his hand to her.
"My name is T'challa. I am already married to my country, and have no room for a soulmate relationship. Perhaps you shall be my friend instead?"
She doesn't take his hand until she has her gloves pulled back over her fingers.
"Sugar, A'h think we can try."