If Only

The first time she figured out she had this power wasn't under any good circumstances. She had really bad food poisoning days after her night terrors started and she was barely sleeping. She hadn’t had the energy to shower for days so she decided to bathe instead. In hindsight, she realizes it was a dumb idea, but in her defense, she was not in her right mind.

The warm water lulled her into her first good dream in days and it was beautiful. She was back in Talokan with Namor, no suit separating them, surrounded by the adorable chubby-cheeked kids playing ball. They were saying something to her but she could not understand what they were saying. Her ears were blocked by something so they just sounded like muffled shouts.

‘Wait, what?’

Her eyes opened to two obscured figures looking over her, their shapes swayed back and forth by the current of the water. The very water she was bathing in, or at least she was bathing in it before she fell asleep. The thing she thought was ‘Am I dead?’ but she highly doubted that since no purple auras were around nor was she in the throne room. So she relaxes and takes a deep breath in and……-nothing. Nothing happens, it feels perfectly normal, no burning in the lungs just nothing. Then came her damned ego.

‘I gave myself the ability to breathe underwater! I’m a fucking genius, this changes everything. I can now work on new technology that never even considered before. This is amazing, Umama and bro-’

“Bast.” She cursed as she pushed herself out of the tub's water. She turned her attention to the two figures who she now could see were children, one was a startled little girl with two giant puffballs dressed in a school uniform who jumped back the moment she shot up. The other is her small, skinny, mini T’Challa who looks at her with an all too familiar dejected and questioning gaze. From the moment she arrived, his little five-year-old life had been filled with nothing short of chaos. She’s sure that when he wakes up he’ll be telling all the nurses in the palace all kinds of stories about his crazy auntie.

She smiles to herself as she swims through the murky waters of the Eastern Atlantic. She was relatively close to the closest stream to take her to Talokan and she can already feel eyes on her. Maybe it’s the instincts of the Panther inside her or her own intuition but she knows something is amiss. 50 kilometers back she constantly saw small fish and other predators, the evidence being the bleeding shark still trailing behind her.

Once she hit the deeper colder waters she came upon this great white eating a Dolphin’s corpse. Then as if sensing her presence the shark turned on her and attacked. It was fast but she was ultimately the winner since it currently has claw marks all over its body, but now it won’t leave her alone, it kinda reminds her of someone but she can’t put her finger on who. Now back to the suspicious quiet eeriness that is these bare waters.

There are only two things that could cause sea life to avoid a specific part of the ocean like this, one is a chemical leak but that is unlikely since Groit hasn’t alerted her to any fluctuations that aren’t normal, so it must mean that she was getting close to something big and scary. Shuri then feels something nudge her foot, she looks back to see her big friend wiggling around clearly stressed out. She slows down to let the fish catch up to her and grabs onto its back fin, she can’t see that well in deep water so she’s blind to whatever is threatening up ahead. So this shark will be what guides her around it.

But soon She finally sees what’s coming for them, it’s an Orca one of the Great White's biggest enemies. So she lets go and swims swiftly towards it, grabbing it with her claws and swinging it deep into the darkness. Just as she was going to turn to see if the shark was okay she gets slugged in the jaw with a powerful, bone-crushing hit. She shakes off the blow to see the last person she wanted to see this early in her endeavor, Namora. Her brown skin and features were muted but the lionfish headdress and smaller figure gave her away.

“Namora, it’s nice to see you too,” Shuri remarks as her shark friend swims around her protectively.

“Who’s DNA did you steal to make this possible?” Namora asks with malice in her tone. Shuri rolls her eyes expecting that it would be her first concern.

“No one’s it’s a symptom of becoming the black panther,” Shuri responds watching her movements closely, Namora grips her hand tighter around her spear. Her body moves ever so slightly into a defensive stance. Shuri places her hand close to her necklace, just in case Namora tries something again.

“Lies, your brother did not have this ability, so I’ll give you one more chance to own up to your crime.” Shuri was a bit taken aback by her knowledge of T’Challa but kept her poker face on. Her excitement would have taken over her face if she didn’t suppress it. Ever since she saw her nephew bleeding out she’s been itching to tear into another person so she could watch them bleed as he had.

“I have a better idea, you will take me to Namor and I won’t beat you as badly as I beat your king.” Shuri presses down on the necklace and her suit deploys accommodating to the water pressure. Namora smacks the shark away and aims for Shuri’s body, but she is more nimble than Namora and quickly disarms the smaller woman. Her spear floats to the deep sea as the two women exchange blows. Namora is faster and more experienced in the water but she wears her emotions on her sleeve. Plus, Shuri knows the Talokanil’s weak spots. She wraps her legs around the woman's hips and digs her fingers into Namora’s shoulder gills, leading the woman to scream out bubbles of anguish.

“A-eh can’t-” Shuri mocked feeling superior watching Namora choke on her own blood. She knows it’s sadistic, but to finally see someone else in pain lit something deep inside her, something dark and extremely appealing.

“Hmm what was that?” She chuckles as Namora’s fear becomes more evident in her eyes. Shuri takes off her suit and grabs one of her Kimoyo beads, grabs Namora’s face, and brings it closer to her making sure she was listening.

“I could let you die and find my own way to Talokan or I can stick this in your wound, which will let you live, but I will only give you this if you take me to Talokan, more specifically to Namor,” Namora clenches her jaw in defiance if she could spit in her face Shuri is sure she would have.

“Do you really want to cause your god another bought of grief? Do you want to become another needless casualty, due to your arrogance? If you do, I have no problem with feeding you to my shark or letting you sink into the abyss, but I'm not I'm not as patient as I use to be so make your decision, QUICKLY.” Shuri smirks as she squeezes Namora’s face a bit tighter. Namora had never felt so much fear in her life, Shuri’s hands were like the ice-cold claws of death themselves.

‘Ix Chel.’

“I will take you to him, please let me live,” Namora says weakly, she feels disgusted at how weak she sounds but survival is her biggest concern at this moment.

Pleased, Shuri places the bead inside the smaller woman's wound and they swim to the underworld with Shuri’s shark in tow.
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Namor had been sleeping when Attuma swam into his hut. Attuma has always been an independent comrade, unlike Namora, which is why he is the general, along with his natural leadership instincts and decisive nature. So, him coming into Namor’s hut must have meant that something serious had happened.

Attuma led him to the healers and what he saw made his heart drop. Guards surrounded Namora’s hammock, healers spread the green paste over her mangled gills. Her brown dress was darkened with blood at the top. He walks up to her with no resistance from the guards.

“My child, who did this to you?” He asks as he held stroked her wet hair. She and Attuma had been hand trained by him since they could walk, their parents had died when they were little so he took them in personally. He considered them to be the closest he could get to children of his own. So whoever, no, whatever did this will feel the full might of his right.

“Ix Chel.” Was the only thing she could muster up.

“What does that mean?” He turned and asked Attuma. Silently, the big man pointed across the cave, the guards moved to reveal the hidden figure standing in the darkest part of the cave. With a sharp intake of his nose, he immediately knows who it is. He gestures for Attuma to take Namora and the healers away. Once the cave is cleared out, Shuri walks forward to reveal herself. His wings propel him forward with his spear clenched in his hands.

“In my defense, she did attack me first.” Shuri parried his attack before speaking. Namor growls at her and throws his spear to the side. He swings his fists at her but she is swiftly dodging him. Just when he thinks he’s cornered her to the walls of the cave she changes their positions. His fist makes a crater in the wall, and several pieces of it scatter the floor.

“I don’t care if she attacked first, you’re stronger than her, which means you had many other options than nearly killing her. But you didn’t choose those, you chose to break our treaty and nearly kill my child,” Shuri smirks at his words and he sees red. His hands are wrapped around her throat in seconds. She doesn’t react even when he can clearly see her struggling to breathe. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now?” Shuri grips her hands around his clenched finger and struggles against them.

“I-I ahm pr-preg-pregnant.” She chokes out with her eyes blazing. Namor releases her immediately as if she had burned him. Well, she might as well have, the strong feeling of betrayal he feels breaking his heart into a million pieces. He knows he shouldn’t be feeling this way, she had made it very clear that they would never be anything. He had buried his feeling for her months ago and yet still a piece of him bleeds at this news.

“Who’s is it?” He asks and gets an immediate response from Shuri in the form of her looking at him like she just heard him say he loves surface dwellers.

“You’re many things to me Namor, but I never thought you were an idiot…it’s yours, dumbass.” She says shaking her head at his possibly, no, definitely shocked face. He could never hide his emotions well in front of her and it’s one of the many things he detests about her. He was sure that she would have found another lover by now, I mean she has goddess-level beauty and is the smartest woman he’s ever met.

“So you haven’t been with anyone else?” He asks as he turns away from her. He hears her take a few steps toward him before he feels her slender finger caress his tense arms.

“No, you sent me into my grieving cycle again remember.” He can feel her breath on his ear and it takes everything in him to redirect the blood flowing to his dick. Sh’es playing another dangerous game with him and he knows she is provoking him again. His playful, clever princess has almost returned to him, he can feel it. But as exciting as the prospect of having his lover back is, he can’t let her get what she wants after all the damage she’s caused.

“I will never apologize for protecting my people.” He responds turning around to look her over. Her thin form and soaked clothes reveal the small bump containing their progeny. His hands itch to touch her but he must remain strong he cannot let her see him falter.

“And I don’t expect you to, in fact, that is why I'm here, I want to accept your offer to burn the world.” His mind went blank for a few seconds to process her words. He searched her face for any kind of sign that she was messing with him.

“Itzia, I thought you knew better than to tease me?” He steps closer to her their bodies now barely a breath away from each other. She looks up into his eyes with defiance shining through at him. But he’ll let her believe he didn’t notice her tense up at his words.

“I wouldn’t have come all this way while pregnant if I wasn’t serious. They tried to take away the last piece of my brother, what do you think they’ll do to our child? I want them eliminated as fast as possible.” He couldn’t help the smile that stretched across her face. If Chaac came down and took his soul right now he’d be happy. He has his Queen, her permission, and their child in her belly, there is nothing more he could ever want.

‘Well, maybe one more thing.’

“We should get married.”

“What?” Shuri asked as her mask cracked. He could see all of her emotions displayed on her face, confusion, anger, grief, and fear. She backed away from him shaking her head in protest. He had to salvage this somehow, he knows she feels the same way as him.

“My people are still wary of you and will be even more so when the news of Namora gets out. We will need to announce your pregnancy and marry to calm them.”

“So it will only be political? No emotions will be involved?” She looks skeptically at him.

“I cannot promise that on my end and I’m sure you can’t either.”

“You really think I want you after everything you’ve done?” Shuri snarls.

“I don’t think, I know you do, why else would you have come all this way to me offering yourself up like this,” She tries to rebuttal but he continues before she can. “Because I’m the only one who understands that rage you feel deep inside. That dark emptiness you feel around everyone else but me. I know it because I feel the same thing you do, I’m just not afraid of them like you are.” He watches her face as she comes to terms with his words. She softens at points and her breathing picks up at others. A silence falls over them as she collects herself.

“I thought I was losing my mind before I took the test at my lab. Constant nightmares, weird cravings, and a need to be by the water. But when I finally figured it out I wasn’t shocked I was relieved, because I finally had a reason, a valid one at least to see you again. But it’s not right what I feel for you, it’s wrong on so many levels. For some reason every time we’re together tragedy follows and we end up hurting each other. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, I don’t want to feel pain anymore and I don’t want that for our child.” Tears start to fall from her dark eyes and Namor can’t help but collect her into his arms. Her words cut him deep and he wants to kiss all her worries away but now is not the right time.

“Itza, I’ll try if you try.”, was all he said as he dipped his nose to smell the mixture of shea butter and sea salt in her hair. She curls her skinny arms around his back and cried harder. Neither of them said anything more since after she stopped crying she fell into a deep sleep right in his arms.

Namor carried her to his hut and let her sleep in his hammock. While he watched her sleep he imagines what their children will look like. He grabs a smooth slap of grey stone and his pigmented paint and starts sketching their child. If he’s lucky it will be a girl that way he can name her after his mother. But he’s just happy he will finally be able to start a family on his own. Truthfully he had tried many times before but it never took with the others. He watched them slip into despair every year that went by with no progenies produced by them and he will still grieve them in his heart. But his excitement will never falter with his new family.

“K’uk’ulkan.” He looks up to see Namora being held up by Attuma. He immediately stops his work and retrieves her from Attuma. The both of them didn’t take their eyes off their sleeping guest. He sits his cousin down in his chair and gets on his knees to speak with her.

“Yes my child what is it you need?” He asks, knowing full well what she will say next.
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