Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shuri liked being divorced.

Her status was a protection against the interests of men that she didn’t care to encourage.

Case in point, W’Kabi. An elder, who was very much divorced with children and had no business looking at her that way.

“No, I’m still-” Shuri would flex her fingers and show her bare ring finger, a statement and barrier all at once. “Sorry.”
The words were sparse, enough for loaded meanings to wedge into their spaces.

“Not even-?” this was Bucky, a politician who was strapped onto the rocket of success from newly minted congressman to the heady inner circle of American politics.
Shuri’s wine glass suspended in mid movement as she watched him across the table with unblinking eyes, the distance between them decorated by the low line of crockery and cutlery; the noise filtering from the boisterous patrons at the bar.

“Not even?” she repeated, allowing for his words to spin out and settle across them like a weighted shroud. Other men might have stammered, or backtracked, but not him.

“A date.”

He was attractive enough, she supposed. Dark haired, light eyed with an intensity that radiated from him like heat from the sun. A few years ago, she might have toyed with the idea. Perhaps, but the klieg lights that followed him due to his profession wasn’t even worth the risk to her curated life. It had not been then, and certainly would not be now.

She looked at her ringless finger, the strip of skin paler and a subtle difference in texture from the rest of her hand.

“No,” she curled her fingers into a fist. “I’m-"

Bucky’s pained but sympathetic smile was her reward. “Of course,” he reached for his water and sipped at it. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” her smile soft with relief that her status blocked her from further unpleasantness. “For understanding.”

This status quo worked with women too.

“Ah,” Pepper nodded, taking Shuri’s hand between hers. “ It's been four months? That’s tough. I hope this-” Pepper indicated their surroundings with a tilt of her head, the wind causing a coppery shock of hair to blow across her face. “Makes it better.”

'This' was the sprawling courtyard of the Stark gardens. With manicured lawns and angular shapes inspired by the topiary of aristocratic gardens from across the pond. The air filled with the soft noises of harp and other soft string instruments as a backdrop to the hum of people at the soirée.

Women from the great and good gathered with their husbands in tow. Shuri scanning them and mentally recalling their business and interests and calculating how they may or may not dovetail with hers.

“It does, thank you,” Shuri nodded, her eyes sombre with satisfaction, but Pepper read it as the pain of recovery.

“Good," Pepper's lips curved upwards, but without teeth showing, it came across as a sympathetic smirk rather than a smile. "Let’s re-join the party.”

“Bast,” Shuri stared at the screen of her phone the next day, half smiling, shaking her head at her messages. “If I knew how painless this was, I’d have gotten married and divorced years ago.”

She accepted the cup of juice placed in front of her with a nod as she tapped out a response to an email. Her elbows on the table steadying her hands as she clacked out a message with two thumbs.

“Oh? So why didn’t you?”

She put her phone down, and stared at her ex husband. Both of them were seated in the cosy breakfast bar with its high chairs (the loft was big on views and high ceilings, but narrow as a janitor's closet) as Namor folded into the seat beside her.

Despite their status as exes, both still had the run of their shared apartment. It was a loft lodged within the heart of the city and too valuable for both for either party to give up.

Originally a ruse bought by both of them for it to be their starter family home, it ended up being good for access to contacts in the city. It was near enough to hotels and restaurants opposite the heaving financial square where companies' fortunes spiralled into dizzying heights or plunged to fathoms below sustainable.

Neither of them wanted to give this piece of real estate up; so they shared custody of it like one would a child, or a favoured pet. A few days with one, and then the other. Payments on its maintenance worked out via civilised contractual agreements. On the rare times, both would be in the apartment at the same time as if they were a family unit, like now.

“Because-” Shuri sipped her juice, her glass in one hand, pushing her phone away from her and into the centre of the table with the other, beside her diary and laptop.

“Other people wouldn’t have been willing to let me go."

It wasn’t a boast, but a fact. If she’d presented herself to anyone else, like she did with Namor seven months ago, she would have still been married; gnawing at her own ankle trapped in the status of marriage, avoiding the concept of pitiful pleas and stonewalling reconciliation.

Namor raised an eyebrow, his features animated with amusement in the mid morning sun that crept in and outlined him in its souring morning light.

"They'd have handed in divorce papers after a night of your snoring."

She flashed him a middle finger. "Swivel."

"We're not married, remember? You can't ask for favours like that anymore."

The laughter sputtered from Shuri before she could stop it, half covering her mouth with her hand, keeping her juice mostly in . Namor did a quick and lazy salute, index and middle finger pressed to his forehead and away from it in quick succession.

"Arse. Hole," Shuri wiped at the back of her mouth with her hand as she watched him as he slid off the bar chair and onto his bare feet. The apartment was small enough for one bed room and a day bed in the living room. He'd taken the latter and slept in, now up and about in morning joggers and a T-shirt that had seen better days with its ragged ribbed neck and hem tattered by time and daily abrasions of wear and tear.

"But seriously," Namor rested his elbow on the bar, his head tilted towards her in question. Shuri 's chin resting on the shelf of her hand, propped up by her elbow on the bar as they spoke.

Near enough for the conversation to be comfortable, but not intimate. "I assume your meet and greets have been going well?"

"Very well," she couldn't help the smugness of her smile. "As a divorced woman, my status is new enough to ward off against romantic interests from - anyone. "

"That's … good," Namor nodded, his eyes cool and unreadable like a too calm sea . "Just so you know — I will start dating again."

"Ah," she said, straightening in her chair as she counted and realised, "But it's been only four months."

"Yes."

"We agreed to six."

"Yes."

The silence between them was deep enough for the noise on the streets outside to float up and filter in. The distant shouts of annoyance, the odd blare of horn.

The quiet went on too long before Shuri held out a free hand, and he shook it. "Fine."

The idea materialised about nine months ago and vexingly, it hadn't been hers.

"It's unfair," she seethed. "I'm being excluded because of the fact that I'm single. Every man thinks that I'm available for a leg over, and every woman thinks that I'm there to Venus trap her man with the power of my -"

T'Challa raised his hand in supplication, his voice in wearied tones of one who had been privy to what ailed her and was entirely sick of hearing about it. "Sister, please."

Shuri rolled her eyes at her brother.

"Anyway, it's not as if —" she sighed and folded her arms across her breasts, her motions as dramatic as a Nollywood heroine. "I have time to entertain their fantasies."

T'Challa sipped at his tea, both of them having breakfast on the veranda.

Shuri lost the appetite for hers as she pushed her bowl of bota to one side.

"You are Shuri, after all," he said in tones of 'big brother' as if the phrase was weighted with insight.

"That," she snapped, "is the problem."

At T'Challa's sputter of amusement, Shuri continued: "I'm well aware of my virtues; be they inherited, nurtured or worked on."

She stood up, looking past the curtain of plants that unfurled from the hanging baskets, framing the skyline of the city in the far distance.

"I need to get past the phase of -" she waved at herself offhandedly, glad in an oversized T-shirt and thigh skimming shorts. "This."

"You could get divorced," T'Challa offered, lifting his mug in her direction. "Nakia seems to be doing just fine."

"She's a teacher," Shuri stopped.

Winced.

It had been just over a year ago now since her brother and sister in law called time on their union, but it still twinged, like an old knee injury. Shuri allowed the silent acknowledgement to settle before she questioned his point because there was one, somewhere. "What of it?"

"People tend to give divorced women a bit of distance, and respect. Especially if there's children. It's expected for them to be careful in their new life and are treated accordingly."

Shuri scoffed. "So you're saying I should get married and divorced just to have an easier time getting by professionally?"

"I'm not saying anything," T'Challa put down his mug of tea and helped himself to a healthy spoonful of bota. "But you wouldn't be short of suitors for your hand in marriage."

"That," Shuri replied, placing her hands on her hips as she looked in the direction of the city. "Is the problem."

"I beg your pardon?"

"No need to beg," Shuri replied in tones of magnanimity.

"It's an expression," Namor answered drily as he eyed the woman in front of him. Shuri.

She from that family, standing in his office her hands clasped in front of her like some good Catholic school girl. Her outfit slightly leaned in that direction, with an oversized jumper over a pleated skirt showing a lot of leg. Her feet encased in a pair of brogues and ankle socks.

Today, her braided hairstyle was up and away from her face, with eyes too shrewd as she scanned their surroundings.

It was tending towards twilight, and Namor had been surprised at her request for them to meet at his office. To further underscore her intentions , she made it formal: A letter sent via registered post that made Namora narrow her eyes in suspicion when she handed it over.

"I could still say no," Namora twirled the slender ballpoint in her hands, her gaze direct and unamused.

"It's fine. She's nothing if not interesting."

"That is the problem."

Namor blinked into now, unable to do anything but laugh, because even he had underestimated how interesting.

"Oh," she said, sounding astonished that people wouldn't do anything but beg for her pardon.

That being said, she wasn't wrong. Shuri was popular enough to be known by her own name and not just of her family's. Her inventions when she'd been under her family's wing had been numerous and profitable.

But in the field that she was in, research and development gobbled up money like a desert sucked up rain. Flashes of oasis only for the rains to retreat, and the water to dry up. To further add to her lore - or gossip- rumour had it that she was looking to strike out on her own, and her company would be on tottering legs like a baby deer.

"I understand your predicament," he tapped the butt end of the pen against his desk. It was at the end of a long python's length of a day, and his nod to it were his rolled up shirt sleeves to his elbows, and his top shirt buttons undone.

"Of course you do, you're not stupid."

"You could pretend. Sell it to me."

Shuri walked across the span of his office and perched herself at the edge of his desk, the pleated skirt riding high on the column of her thigh, the oversized jumper falling off her shoulder, her white lace detailed undershirt a wink in his direction.

During the years their families knew each other, with their paths circling and cutting through each others' like Venn diagrams, or children running through neighbour's gardens, he saw snatches of her as she grew from gawky precocious teenager to assured woman. From headlines lauding her inventions and designs, to scandalous pictures blurred by online red tops and TMZ.

She was like a species of a rare and coveted bird: you'd hear its song, be regaled by descriptions about what it looked like from other besotted parties, and see glimpses of it from the side of your eye throughout the years. Every time it appeared, it would enchant anew.

In print, Shuri was attractive, a slinky thing wrapped around her awards and bonafides she gathered throughout the years. There were group shots with her friends on social media, all of them groomed, pampered and beautiful. Fashionable enough for her to pop up in papers or on gossip websites, in the tiniest of bikinis known to man.

Printed and online photos were not a patch on real life, the air cackling with her dynamism, her features more pointed in real life than print. Her eyes widening with surprise when something didn't go the way she expected it to or narrowed to slits in speculation or displeasure.

Right now, she was vibrant and alive and explaining the crux of her problem.

He understood her issue but hadn't expected her to present her solution so matter of fact.

"Oh, so you wanted flattery? Or for me to say this obliquely?"

"You're asking me to marry you."

"Yes."

"Can I ask why?"

"Ah, so you do want flattery."

Namor leaned back in his chair, allowing it to take his weight. He was at the cigarette filter's end of a long day, with many things calling for his attention, but this was the most interesting thing that happened to him in a while.

"Humour me."

"You're objectively attractive, have never been married before so there's no whiff of impropriety and gossip," Shuri counted off the reasons on ring studded fingers. "You're childless and rich enough to be interesting. Also, you have enough money so you will not be needing mine. We'll be married for a quarter, and then an expedited divorce. After six months, you can either date or continue your life of celibacy, whichever suits you."

"And what am I getting out of it?"

"You'd have the wounded air of a divorced husband that women can't help but be drawn to," she shrugged her shoulders with a nonchalance that he admired.

"You can't really trust a man who hasn't been in a serious relationship or divorced by the time they're forty five or so. Women are a litmus test in many ways. By the time you get back into the dating scene in six months, women will be wanting to be your second wife, because you were failed by your first."

Remarkable.

"You have a talent for Trojan horsing insults in a compliment."

"So?"

"I'll think about it."

"I can't believe that he's actually thinking about it," she'd groused to Eden and Monet after dinner. They were seated in the living room, with a sofa big enough for all three, but Shuri decided to sit in the oversized arm chair opposite.

It was late summer in Melbourne, the sun retreating from the end of the day outside, flicking the lights on in buildings and along the pier in the near distance outside their window as it ran off into the night. It was light enough for her to appreciate their living room, with the brightly woven rugs on the wooden floors, with cushions tucked into the corner of their egg robin coloured sofa. Monet rested her head against Eden's shoulder, his arm idly making circles on the curve of hers. "Isn't that a good sign?"

Shuri straightened in her chair, staring her friend down. "Whatever do you mean?"

"If he's not jumping at the offer with immediacy, it means that he won't hold you back when both of you are ready to call it a day," Monet continued, her tones just haughty like her good self.

Willowy, dark skinned, with a face elegant enough to inspire magazines to chronicle and ape her fashion choices, she was one of the few who understood how it hard was to be desired, not just for herself but for the expectations around her face and her name.

"Like you say, you don't want to actually marry a man who wants to actually marry you. He'd never leave. Or protest the dissolution of marriage at every step."

Shuri hmm'd, tapping her fingers against her lower lip. This was true.

"I'm sure there are others, if he says no," Eden chimed in, his mood cheerful and welcome as a burst of sunlight after weeks of prolonged gloom. It didn't hurt that he was good looking, a suitable companion to Monet with his rangy build, and cheekbones that you could shave cheese on. All this, and he was a warm man who loved Monet as openly and fearlessly as she demanded.

Shuri basked in the warmth of their shared affection for a moment before focusing on her own dilemma.

No, Shuri wanted to say, he was it.

Because he was.

He was everything that she liked as a degree husband.

Or in this case, a one semester spouse before you dropped out of university, disillusioned by your course before spending weeks in isolation downing ubulawo , discarding your insides for insight only to return to school for real this time with a new aim - and major.

Namor was handsome: with burnt ochre skin, thick waves of black hair that he allowed to grow just a tad too long and dark eyes that watched your every movement. He was tall enough for her to have to lift her head, or to hang on for life if he should ever lift her up.

Not that they'd never shared that intimacy; the furthest they came to touching was the quick handshakes they'd exchanged over the years, morphing into the slight brush of cheeks against each other at various events as she'd stepped into adulthood and vertiginous heels. But she'd heard enough gossip at spas and retreats to have some idea.

The bulk of him was thick enough for her to be swallowed by his shadow if he should loom over her. She'd spoken to him over the years, liked the fact that he'd look into her eyes when speaking to her, and had never done anything overtly out of order.

One’s first husband was important, because he led to the second, serious one.

Also, according to gossip, he was no slouch if they were to - wait. Should they consummate this marriage or have it dissolved by -

"A— semester husband?" Eden's laugh interrupted her thoughts, him clapping his hands together with kinetic amusement. "Oh, Shuri."

"It makes sense," Monet agreed, pushing herself from her prone position to seated. "It's clean, and it will give Shuri what she needs, a social cachet for her to mind her business as she best sees it."

"Ah," Eden shook his head at both of them in mock despair.

"I'm here with the last two great romantics. And poor Monet, just hobbling through life as a married woman."

"To you," Monet teased, but there was no missing the love and the heat in their shared gaze. It was pointed enough for Shuri to drop her gaze and let them have their moment of intimacy.

"I'll get a bottle," Eden pushed himself up to his feet and saw the set of Shuri's mouth and the vertical line between her eyebrows showing how vexing her thoughts were.

"On second thought, let's have three bottles and get you put up for the night."

Namor thought about it

Actually, truth be told, by the time Shuri finished her pitch - leaving him torn between disbelief and rolling on the floor laughing - he had already decided, yes.

"I'll need to think about it," Namor demurred, not because they both needed time but because she wouldn't have respected an easy decision.

"Alright," Shuri nodded, slipping from the corner of his desk and landing on her feet. She slid him a look from the corner of narrowed eyes as she delivered her edict. "You have seventy two hours. If no answer by then, I'll be perusing other options."

"Alright," Namor agreed, as he held out a hand for them to shake. Shuri extended hers, and with a quick pump, the deal was sealed.

Forty eight hours later, Shuri stood in her bedroom.

She'd changed out of her work clothing into pyjamas soft and slinky, her braids loose and trailing over her shoulders.

She glanced at the clock on her bedroom wall, cat's eyes swinging left to right in time, paws indicating that it was half seven p.m.

After hours, that was when the sun retreated and the doubts stole in; even for someone who held herself in the highest self regard. It had been a little over forty eight hours and Shuri wondered if Namor was wavering, if he'd -

Enough. He had to say yes, because she was tired of fending off men who wanted everything except for what she was willing to give.

"We should catch up sometime over dinner, " Otto Octavius put to her later that day on Zoom. "The next time you're in New York. There's this lovely family run res -"

"We'll get caught up at the conference. Everything is so busy when we're there. You know how it is."

And if he didn't, she wasn't there to hand hold, Shuri fumed to herself as she disconnected the connection.

"Shuricat -" and that was her brother, his voice in the lilt of a question, his voice floating up the stairs to her room. "You have a visitor?"

By the time she left her bedroom and came into the front room where guests were entertained, she stopped. In the sweep of the open room, with dazzling textures and patterns and objects of interest, her gaze swept and locked in on him.

Namor leaned in the doorway, almost indolent in his slouch, his slate dress shirt with the few top buttons undone, and when their eyes met, his smirk broadened into a smile.
Shuri returned it, because yes, that's what she wanted; someone who understood the game, who would let her go after this ruse was done.

She paused on the stair, her night shirt enough for the bottoms of her shorts to just about show with each movement of her legs. Her mother would have had a conniption fit if she were here, so it was good for both that she was visiting relations in the old country, then.

T'Challa looked at his sister and at his peer who seemed to have become her suitor overnight. This wasn't a new thing; Shuri attracted suitors like iron fillings cleaved to magnets.
However, this was new, the air of mutual interest and strength from each side.

"What are you two -?" T'Challa began suspiciously eyeing them both.

His sister with a glint in her eye only seen when she was in the midst of plotting mischief. Her fingers trailing on the banister as she came down the stairs. Namor, someone who was old enough to know better, his smile too cunning by half, with laugh lines at the corner of his eyes that hinted at a deep amusement.

"Marry me," and it wasn't an entreaty, but a dare.

"Yes," and it wasn't a breathy, giddy expectation, but an acceptance to the terms set.

T'Challa pressed his fingers to his temples and massaged them. He thought about everything and decided that he would not be telling their mother. However, he would have words with Namor the next time he caught up with him, since he’d be an in-law after all.

"I see how you look at my sister."

"And how she looks right back," Namor answered in the same quiet tones .

Both of them were outside in the fragrant gardens, T'Challa's hand rested on Namor's shoulder, his face wreathed in a grin that belied his actual reaction to the news, the sort of pose that would have read as congratulatory if caught by the cameras. A bright day, with two tall and darkly handsome men in light coloured linen clothing enjoying the garden party at the Xavier Mansion for Mutant Studies and Research.

Once a year, the great and the good flooded the gentle roll of the grounds with the mansion in the distance. Formerly, it had been a school for mutants, but now it had given way to genetic research innovations, attracting a cross section of people who came here to do business, as well as a dash of socialites and celebrities to make it interesting , such as Dazzler, who was due to perform when the sun set.

Now, the harsh heat of the sun gave way to the softening late afternoon breezes and the tables shaded under parasols and dotted with squat cooling towers on their surfaces. In the distance, as she spoke with Emma Frost, Shuri stood out; the jewellery in her ears and the white fabric of her dress against her dark skin caught your attention but her bearing and animated gestures held it.

He had sent her an engagement ring via courier. Gold - because the warmth suited her skin - with pink and teal sapphires that changed colour in the light and glowed against the dusk of her skin.

She sent him a thank you note, which ended with, it's acceptable.

Namor flicked his gaze from her to her brother's. T'Challa was, as a rule, a pleasant man with a great smile - until you crossed him - and even in anger, he exercised a discipline that bordered on asceticism. Shuri was the opposite of her brother in temperament - her storm at sea to his bay of tranquil.

"Shuri can choose her own —" T'Challa gave him a once over, which would have caused lesser men to sweat, or adjust their clothes or check their shoes. Namor stared right back.

"Playmates," T'Challa finished delicately. "So I won't intervene. Unless it's warranted."

"Shuri -"

"Is madcap and stubborn as she's brilliant," T'Challa's face grew warm and fond for an instant, before returning to being cool eyed and shrewd. "That being said, I expect hare-brained schemes from her such as a quickie marriage - her hypothesis leading to Bast only she knows. But you-" his grip on Namor's shoulder increased by an atmospheric bar. The press of his fingers almost caused Namor to wince. "Really?"

"She's brilliant - and astonishing and beautiful. That's enough."

T'Challa shook his head, acting more like an exasperated father than anything. "Listen, if for whatever reason it doesn't work— and she is hurt in any way- I will have no choice but to return it to you - with interest."

"Understood."

"Enjoy the party," T'Challa released his hold on Namor's shoulder and sidled off, greeting everyone who crossed his path as if it were his party. But that was the way of Shuri's people; they planted themselves and bloomed everywhere.

"Are you crazy?"

Namora seared Namor with a look as he was attended to by a tailor who was measuring him for a suit. They were in the shop, the atmosphere was church quiet due to the bolt of fabrics from counter to ceiling ranging in sombre colours from cream to ranges of black. There was a quiet snip of scissors in the background. This was a place of tailors for the past ninety years.

Namor couldn't hide anything from Namora, nor did he want to. However, he swore her to secrecy until the deed was done.

"Don't worry, no one would believe it," Namora seethed. "Probably about her, sure. Shuri 's pre frontal cortex has just completed development."

"She's twenty eight."

"Butyou?" Namora continued, when she had something in her sights, she was unrelenting. "Why are you doing this?"

Namor smiled at his cousin as he waved off a tailoring apprentice away in order to hug her against him with one arm, wincing at the pins skimming against his skin.

"Because, she'll make these three months interesting."

"Ugh," Namora huffed, rolling her eyes heavenward. "Please. You're being manipulated."

"By an interesting, attractive woman. There are worse thi- Oww, 'Mora!"

"You shouldn't have left your toe there."

"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue," Monet recited as she fastened a choker with translucent violet blue stones around her friend's throat. Both of them stared at their faces in the hotel mirror, Monet hugging Shuri close. The moment felt too big for jokes to be made.

They were in a hotel room, which overlooked the small registry office where they were to be married. No hen do, or wild bachelorette party, just Shuri and Monet prepping her for the next stage of her plan.

For technically the next semester of her life.

"It's a tanzanite. The stones are from the first haul from Mount Kilimanjaro in nineteen sixty seven," Monet gathered Shuri's braids and set to making an elaborate topknot. "My grandmother loved the stone, although her contemporaries thought it vulgar."

Shuri touched the necklace, looking at herself in the mirror. The stones were stunning, trapping the light in its forms as if there were luminous spirits captured by blue glass and flitting from angle to angle to break out. It was stunning, and Monet had chosen well.

This wasn't a real marriage, so she grabbed a dress from her wardrobe, something fun. A midi length gown, with a snug corset top and a bell skirt and pockets. It was the colour of old parchment with embroidered flowers of coral and cornflower blue. With the necklace of blue stones and her braids up and off her face, her ensemble was perfect.

"I was trying to find a gemstone in my grandmother's collection that expressed the sentiments of 'this madcap scheme might be too much even for you' but no such luck," Monet murmured as she fastened the latch on her necklace to Shuri's huff of laughter.

"So here's to self expression, intuition, luxury and romance instead."

The ring was a simple gold band to go with her engagement ring. Shuri thumbed at both with her finger as they sat on the bed, the TV showing news in Spanish.
It was agreed, they'd spend the night here: a four star hotel that was suited to Shuri's own tastes.

The civil ceremony was quick, they said their lines, a press of lips and done. Took photos and sent them with a press release to her family's publicist. Her parents found out at the same time as everyone else and Shuri quietly turned off her phone and slip it in her bag.

Now, she thought, playing with her rings. The divorce count down started as soon as they left the court house.

She was seated on the bed, her dress shucked off, her something old/borrowed/blue/ necklace peeking from under her sleep shirt. Half distracted by her phone writhing and bouncing off the bed as if possessed by a spirit, animated by shocked congratulatory texts from everyone.

Stage one of her plan, complete.

"Shuri?"

She blinked, Namor was in stages of undress , his dress shirt unbuttoned, his chest broad, his smart, dark trousers still on. His hair ruffled from the wind that pressed against them on their way here, and even with him trying to comb it into some semblance of order in the lift, it was still dishevelled.

It was curious how he had loomed large in her imagination as an idea and an end. Versus him now, all man with hints of tobacco and stripping down to something
human with undone hair and wardrobe.

Objectively, she knew that Namor was attractive. For a husband- be him the first or one hundredth - she wouldn't have demanded less. But seeing him now, his skin drawn over the bulk of him. The breadth of his shoulders and then to be the subject of his gaze, as if she were a present to be unwrapped or a piece of a puzzle to be searched for, touched and slotted in to make a picture. That he made her stare back at herself in ways that she hadn't felt for a long time - if ever at all.

"Yes?"

"The couch?"

"Oh," she nodded. "Yes," she said, because … yes.

"Are you sure?"

"Hmm."

Much later, as she smoothed her pillows and settled on the sofa to sleep and drew her blankets up to her chin, Shuri realised that she had landed herself an actual husband.
And, rather like a dog who chased and finally caught a car, it dawned on her that she didn't know what to do with him. Or the idea of him.

Now, seven months later, Shuri waggled her fingers, bare of her wedding rings, and told herself she didn't miss them. She should replace it with something silver, heavy and cold. Or something of warm gold with a stone that winked at the light with every movement. Her naked finger wasn't a lack, she told herself.

It was also its own sign, that to everyone, she was still (supposedly) nursing the wounds from the shrapnel of her torrid semester length of a marriage.

The white noise of the shower stopped, giving way the whrrrr of an electric toothbrush, the low swearing as he bumped into something (this apartment was really too small) and she was able to track Namor's getting ready for the day by the noises that he made by way of his activities. It was a game of one that she played, timing when he'd open the door in three - two - one.

Ah, there he was, hair damp from the shower, grabbing his jacket from the sofa and shrugging into it. She watched everything as if it were in slow motion, his shoulders rolling into his jacket, his hands gripping and adjusting the lapels.

Absently patting his pockets for his wallet and phone and hmm.

Something stirred in Shuri, causing her to wince, as if she'd over extended herself when lunging to close the distance between her racket and the ball. She wasn't one for discomfort, and shifted it so that both were uncomfortable.

"Will I get to meet her, at least?"

Namor thoughtfully ran his fingers along his hair roughened jaw. "Why would you want to?"

"Why not," she slid off her chair, searching for - and finding the floor with the balls of her feet. She walked across the wooden floor, wincing at the slight chill of it through the thin soles of her socks. Stopped short and looked up at him, wondering.

"She's made you move up our time table by two months. I'd like to see who would force your hand like this."

"Shuri."

"Yes?"

"No," he tugged at a loose braid. Their faces were close enough to smell the aniseed and mint of his toothpaste on his breath. "You got your in, going through life as a young, battle hardened divorcee. I'm the man who broke your heart, remember?"

"Yes," Shuri recited their agreed narrative, telling herself that because she knew it by heart, it felt a bit flat. "I'm bruised, and I'll never love again. Whereas you-" it took work to keep her voice pleasant, despite her gritted teeth, but she managed. "Have moved on two months ahead of our agreement."

Namor shot her a level look along the lines of, You wrote the script, remember? With a wrench, she turned away from him and threw herself on the sofa . Winced when she searched for, and yanked the TV remote from underneath her body. She aimed the remote at the TV and turned it on, her eyes on the screen until he left the room.

Another great aspect of being divorced, was the camaraderie amongst women. Sisters in arms after a fashion, who had lunches and networked. They took her into their company, and never asked her the particulars about her divorce.

"It's like, being post woman," Shuri tried to explain to Riri once, while they walked through a traders' market eyeing the stalls. "I've hit the markers of womanhood - with the exception of children- and it's just amazing."

"The markers of womanhood as defined by men. Pah. I am so glad I opted out of that life."

"You're queer."

"Exactly."

“I’ll make sure to choose that on my next go around,” Shuri quipped as they stopped to buy ice cream, made fresh on the premises.

It was thrilling, being accepted into a network of women that she admired.

Each of them strong, brilliant and interesting: Moira MacTaggart, a top geneticist in her field who had the bawdiest jokes and the thickest Scottish accent she'd ever heard.
Monica Chang spoke six languages with varying levels of fluency and beauty, but she had the filthiest mouth Shuri ever heard, and built the most ornate castles from cards.
Ororo Monroe - an ex model turned interior decorator with her own line of furniture and accessories. She always smelt intoxicating, like a garden at sunset, because she made her own perfumes.

They didn't speak about their divorces - not directly - but sometimes, the hurt would twig like a muscle when moved wrong. It might be a smile too wan, or a crack on a word like thin ice underfoot.

At times like this, Shuri would feel a twinge of guilt; her divorce had been easy, because her marriage -

"Never was, after a fashion," she'd say, sipping at the wee dram of whiskey Moira would share amongst them all . "It just… dissolved."

"And he just… let you go?" Monica rolled her eyes. "Without a fight ?"

"I didn't-" -want to be kept, Shuri wanted to say. She didn't want the thorny bits of emotion added to status.

Then she thought about Namor giving her notice that he'd found someone two months earlier than he should have done, and her fingers tightened around her shot glass.
"I didn't," she repeated, before taking a shot of whiskey, before she thought too much about it. "Want to stay."

It was the photos that forced Namor's hand pushing him to end their agreement two months earlier than planned. It hadn't been Tony - although he would have liked to have thought he'd been the catalyst- asking about Namor's love life.

"You're a happily married man," Namor slid Tony an askance look from their places at the bar. It was one of those places which was normally as crowded as the train during rush hour, but the two men got the sweet spot - where there was enough of a buzz for a vibe, but not too much so you could still have a hearty conversation.

"Who lives vicariously through my friends," Tony lifted his glass of ginger ale in a toast. He wagged his fingers and caught the bartender's eye, pointing at Namor's shot of tequila and his glass of ginger ale, waving two fingers like a peace sign.

"You're divorced, and the world is your oyster, after a fashion."

"After a fashion," Namor said.

"So, what happened?"

"What happened?"

"Between you and Shuri? To be fair, that was a surprise. The serpent and the panther -" Tony shrugged apologetically, but Namor waved it away.

You couldn't be a part of Shuri's orbit and not expect some sort of moniker in the parts of the press who kept onlookers abreast with her goings with fevered interest, as if she were the Internet's favourite niece.

"Nothing happened."

"A civilized divorce?" Tony rolled his eyes and held up a hand to the waiter, signalling another round of ginger ale. "Pfft, boring."

"Not sorry to disappoint."

Slightly buzzed from his night out, Namor arrived home to correspondence. The great thing about their shared city apartment was how central it was; plugged into the heart of the city, with night and daily life buzzing all around it. Him walking amongst the rest of humanity on a late spring evening, the night held at bay by lights: from both street and the other buildings. The second best thing was how strictly both of them stuck to the agreement. They both paid for upkeep, and if they decided to entertain company, they sought other options. Their flat was what people in the trade would have called skinny: this building with its slim rooms, high ceilings, tall glass windows letting in light and view of the surroundings. The furniture in muted desert colours, but warmed by dots of colour from cushions and rugs.

Various masks and ephemera from both of their cultures adorned the walls and dotted shelves and table tops; the air pleasantly smudged with the floral and sandalwood scent of bakhoor, something that Shuri carried with her from her parents' home, causing everything to be singed with the warm, slightly floral and antiseptic scent of cedar.
He picked up the A3 sized envelope that had been left on the table by the cleaning staff. Tugged at the tag that tore the envelope open, the sharp pain of memory sliding between his ribs as he pulled out the photos.

The pearl necklace had been for his late mother's charity. Black pearls, their lustre as iridescent like oil on water. By themselves the stones were perfect: vibrant with
soft glows, like tinted cloths of dark greens, purples, pewter and peacock stretched over bright orbs. On her body, the dark sheen and smooth grain of her skin, the stones were otherworldly.

A few weeks earlier he had taken the necklace home, with accompanying mock-ups. Once a year, his company would showcase a commission from an artist to put forward for charity. These pieces of art would be ordered months to years in advance, and hinted at in closeups across all media. This year was to be jewellery.

Namor carried the string of Tahitian pearls home, which would be this year's offering, the jewels a quiet glow in its velvet box.

"Let me see that," Shuri had said then, gently holding the necklace with the tips of her fingers. They were both seated at the little table across from each other. The mock-ups for the auction were tasteful, the necklace a showpiece.

Her eyes scanned the materials about the charity, what the necklace represented. She looked at the photos and the mock-ups.

Namor shifted forward, his elbows on the table, the steeple of his index fingers pressing against his lips. He liked watching her, today dressed in a sharply pressed too white top with sharp oversized lapels and a pair of shorts high on her thighs as she stood up, holding the clasp of the necklace in her hands.

She glanced at him, and then the necklace.

"Can you leave this with me for forty eight hours?"

He thought about it and shrugged. It made sense, Shuri would probably take a picture and post it on her socials, creating some heat for the charity. She was responsible. It would be fine.

The next day Namor stumbled into bedlam .

The apartment swarming with people and equipment as if he had stepped onto the behind the scenes of a music video. Beats seemingly beaming from Ibiza thumping through the walls, the speakers being that effective. There were racks of clothing along the rails, with enough accessories along the coffee table and sofa to outfit a souk, and the makeup in its oversized cases were its own mini Sephora carousel in the living room.

"Shuri -" Namor walked in and stopped at the door frame.

She was in the bedroom - but not alone.

Lights and reflectors were aimed at her bed; she was the focal point of cameras and light techs. Sentinels of blade-less fans blasted at high speed, the sheets rustling in the wind around her thighs like waves rushing to the shore.

Shuri was on her knees in bed, with nothing on except her necklace and low slung knickers being directed by a young white guy behind the camera as he guided her through poses.

"Yeah, Shuri, that's it. One over the shoulder for good luck?"

Some poses were kittenish, others with the peekaboo cheeky sexiness of a pin up girl: her arm across her breasts, showing off the necklace. The bedsheets rumpled as if she had come off a session of heavy love making.

Her expression went from complacent and loved up to mischievous.

Their gazes locked, and Shuri stayed in the pose for a brief second, as if giving him permission to burn the image of her in his memory. As if he'd ever forget; the black pearls decorating the base of her neck and hovering there, like glowing little planets against the night of her skin.

His skin suddenly shrank two sizes smaller than his frame as Shuri leaned forward, folding her arms across her breasts, her braids a half curtain, the lustre of the greens, blues and purples of the stones peeking through.

Namor's fingers flexed, and he half thought about ejecting the camera and its owner out of their flat expeditiously- as in through the window.

Unopened.

Before his thoughts turned to murder, Shuri threw her head back and raised her hand in greeting. Her smile was small and feline, and as if on cue, the music cut from straining on the heart loud to muted in the background.

"Namor," she gestured to him with her free hand. "Come on in, we're just finishing up."

"Finishing-?"

"Namor, Peter. Peter, Namor."

"Ah," Peter grinned, pushing back a shock of dark hair from a too boyish face. His eyes wide and green, his body lean and he looked like a college coed in a short sleeved t-shirt, beat up jeans and socked feet, because this was a shoe free zone.

"Mr Shuri. I mean, Shuri's husband," he held out a free hand, the other clutching a camera the size of a domestic house cat and the cost of a nice car. "Nice to meet you."

"Not likewise, if you can't tell me what's going on."

Shuri held out her hand, an assistant handing her a robe that she slipped into. It was something silken and thin enough for him to see the outline of her nipples, and the ivory of her low slung knickers.

"Peter owed me a favour," Shuri explained, pressing a towel against her dewy face that she got from the mind reading assistant; a dark skinned girl with eye glasses the colour of beaten gold to match her lipstick.

"A favour."

"Phew," she exclaimed, holding off her braids from the nape of her neck with her hand. "I forget what it's like under the lights."

Shuri shuffled on her knees across and off the bed, her robe dropping from thigh high to calf.

"It's always great to link up," Peter beamed, raking his fingers through the thick shock of hair as he rocked back on his heels. "I remember our last shot with Interview. It rocked."

Shuri returned his grin before excusing herself to the en-suite, leaving the two men staring at each other. Namor's glower a contrast to Peter's wide eyed eagerness, the latter oblivious to the danger he was in.

"How soon," Namor gritted his teeth. "Will you leave."

This was not a question, although it might have been phrased as one.

"Forty minutes."

"I'll give you twenty."

"Shuri's always a great subject to photograph. She's open to anything, and gives you everything," Peter prattled on, coming across as more eager college student than professional photographer, oblivious to the emotion clawing at Namor's throat.

"You don't say."

"She's the greatest. Tapped me up for some great gigs over the years. I was only too happy to help with this charity gig. Okay," Peter flicked his wrist, his eyebrows shooting up at the time on his smart watch.

"Gotta go. I'll get out of your hair in twenty minutes."

"Fifteen. Or five by defenestration."

Peter huffed a breath, his eyes wide and green behind the lenses of his glasses. "Defene -" he sounded out the word, his head jerking when he remembered its definition and gave a prompt nod. " Fifteen it is. We'll get the bulk of the stuff out of here and arrange for pick up tomorrow."

True to Peter's word, by the time Shuri came out, her face freshly scrubbed of all makeup, her braids off her face in two space buns and her robe half fastened, they were alone. The music shut down, general bulky equipment, plus the fans removed, and Aneka- that had been the name of Shuri's all seeing, all knowing assistant - cleared the apartment of all people, dragging the door behind the mob shut with a sharp snap.

"I forget the buzz when you're in front of the camera," Shuri fanned herself with her hands, because this building was too old and listed for air conditioning.

"It's -" and she stopped, both of them aware of his gaze on her. It was still light, the late afternoon casting long shadows across the floors and bed, now that the lights and reflectors were gone.

"The necklace," because sentences were beyond him now.

"Yes," Shuri laughed, as she reached behind her to unfasten the necklace. "Your ways are serviceable but this should give it much more sizzle," she smiled at him then, edged with triumph. "You'll get a good price for it now."

"Leave it on," and he didn't know his voice, all hoarse and thickened with the want of her. His hands on her wrists as he lowered her arms . He reached up and traced his finger along her skin. Felt the fine tooth surface of pearl against the grain of her skin. Knew that she shivered at his touch, the way his fingers trembled as he skimmed the curve under her breast.

"Namor," Shuri whispered, and it was in a voice that he didn't recognise. It was hers - sweet with an edge but not - now softer and vulnerable.

"Please," and he dipped his head and kissed her.

This wasn't new, they'd done this before. Her arms sliding up and around his neck, her lips under his. The first couple of times, it had been under the influence of drink, or dismissed as a lark, but now, walking her backwards to tip back on the bed, his hands supporting her back and shoulders this was - not that.

Shuri hmm'd, her skin smooth and fragrant to his touches and kisses as he peeled off her robe. Her breasts were small enough to be mostly hidden by his palms. Her skin was hot and dewy as his teeth skimmed the column of her neck. His tongue tasted salt and her.

Her body as he remembered it - but not.

They had been tipsy then. Drunk on wine first, and lust later. But this -

"Take - this -off," Shuri tugged at his jacket, and it was too much. He stepped back, his gaze locked unerringly on her, as if she were the North Star, and him on dark seas. Shuri half seated on the bed, her body weight resting on her arms. The air silent save the rustle of his clothes as he unbuttoned and unzipped. His belt buckle a muted jingle, and strangely unsure because -

"Socks," she said.

"Socks?"

"We won't be doing this with your socks on, not like before."

"We were -" he hopped on one foot, peeling his sock off. Then on the other- too late he overbalanced, the world tilted as he crashed on the bed beside her, to her snort of laughter. "Drunk," he finished.

Shuri touched his face then, her hands cool despite the relative humidity that surrounded them. Her touches were soft, as she thumbed his eye socket and smoothed his brow. Her fingers exploratory as she stroked his hair, and this was new. She opened her mouth to say something and closed it as if she thought better about it.

"We aren't drunk," he traced the curve of her lower lip with his thumb. Saw her throat working as she calculated what she wanted to say. He decided the matter for them both as he cupped her face, licked into her mouth. Swallowed her sighs.

Her body supple and compact, as he whispered nonsense in her skin, her gasps exploding into sobs and his name a drawn out song as he slipped off her knickers, thumbed her open and placed his mouth there.

This was another first between them; Shuri's hands in his hair as she rocked her hips into a disjointed rhythm on his tongue, chanting his name until he held her fast with his hands and tipped her over. His nose and tongue were shiny and fragrant with her essence as he drank her sudden release.

"Come here," Shuri hissed as she tugged at his hair, and he surged upwards. Their foreheads leaning against each other, them breathing into each other's mouths as he pressed into her on a moan, she was hot, wet and snug.

Her hands and legs held him in place as he moved in her. Her mouth opened under his as she sucked his tongue, she moaned his name as he slid a hand between them, coaxing her on. Shuri was sly in her own way, her hand on his sac, her mouth filthy- as she urged him on.

"I'm -" he panted as he pumped into her, the air heavy with the scent of them, and Shuri held him tighter, wringing everything from him.

The world came to him in drips. He backed out on shaky legs, enough to tumble into the wet spot. He was too wrung out to care. Shuri's braids were undone, swirling around her face and shoulders like filaments in water. She breathed slowly, the pearl necklace intact.

Her profile was fine, as proud as a ship's figurehead and just as mysterious. She turned to him then, wearing her nakedness with the ease that other people wore clothing, the spheres on her necklace glowing as if they had swallowed light during the day and releasing it in stages throughout the night.

"What are you thinking?"

"That we should have stayed drunk," Shuri sighed, as she pushed herself into a seated position, tossing her braids behind her shoulders. She got up and walked towards the bathroom, and Namor followed behind.

The bathroom was as narrow as the rest of the flat.

High ceilings but tight enough so that a bath wasn't an option, just a shower. The great feature of this bathroom was its tall elongated windows with reflective glass that tinted the bathroom into a roseate glow so it always felt like a perennial golden hour.

She turned on the shower, the bathroom filling up with white noise and steam. Turned herself to him as she held her braids up and off the nape of her neck, allowing him to unlatch the necklace.

"I'm not sorry that we aren't," he answered, dropping the necklace into an old crystal ashtray that Shuri collected because they made good trinket saucers.

"This isn't real," Shuri raised her head for her gaze to lock into his. "None of this is."

"I know," he said, because this was a twelve week year. Shuri stepped into the shower, grabbing for a bar of soap that made her smell like marzipan.

She held out her hand, slick with water and soap bubbles. "Come," she waggled her fingers, "I need you to scrub my back."

Namor blinked into now, looking at the photos. Another memory of that night, when they cleaned up and changed the bedsheets, them talking in the darkness. Their backs against the rattan headboard. The conversation meandered and went nowhere and it was strange to have conversations without direction. Just to tug at a thread of one, that unravelled another.

"It was hard to find someone to be a willing husband," Shuri bounced her shoulder against his, both of them on clean sheets, the TVs off and their phones on silent.

"Ah, you asked other people?"

Shuri clicked her tongue, and half laughed. "No. It was going to only be you. On paper you suited. It helps that you and T'Challa are - "

"Polite."

"Oh," she said, in lightly scornful tones. "Of course. He's dying for this to be over. I don't think he's looked in my direction since -" she waved her hand, the light catching her rings on her fourth finger.

"He won't need to wait long since this finishes in a few days." Namor patted her thigh then, the quiet settling around them. Not expecting Shuri to lean over and kiss him, sweet and lingering.

"I'm glad that we aren't drunk," she murmured, as she turned to face him and swung a leg over, her thighs bracketing his as he shrugged off her robe, her the sheen of her skin taking on the colours the lights around them and softly glowing as if she were a black pearl.

The second time around, he knew what she liked and undid her slowly, his hands and mouth making her sob and pant.

Two days later, he signed the dissolution of their marriage without blinking, pushing the sheaf of papers towards her at their living room table.

On Sunday mornings, Shuri was a great participant in the art of hurkle durkling - lounging in bed until she was at risk of fermenting- he'd told her once. But not this morning, Shuri up bright and early as if it were Christmas morning, and by the glint in her eyes, it might have been.

"Thank you," she said, leaning forward to squeeze his hand in gratitude between hers before drawing them back.

"I-"she started to tug at the wedding rings on her finger and Namor placed his hand there, pausing the movement.

"Keep them."

"But I -"

"It would be bad luck for my next wife, if I gave her wedding rings from the first marriage."

Shuri jumped to her feet, and flitted around the table. Her hug was brief, strong and sudden, before she rushed off, neither of them realising that she'd taken and given more than she had meant to. Now, three months later, Namor understood. He slotted the photos back in their envelope and decided he'd hand it over to Namora, let her decide.

"You've lost the run of yourself," Monet scolded, her hair half way off her face, hidden by the heavy quilt of her sleeping eye mask.

It was evening, and she'd flown in, because friendship demanded it; setting herself up in the local Mandarin. It was bliss, with everything decked for comfort including the brisk air conditioning. Both were curled up in bed with their most comfortable pyjamas as they watched a TV channel devoted to classic American soap operas.
You couldn't be serious about scolding people if you were soft and ready for a lie in, but Monet never shied away from a challenge.

"Besides," she waved a finger in Shuri's direction. "You were the one who wanted the split. You found a man who was willing to give it to you. Now you want to know who he might be seeing?"

"Whom - ow!" Shuri hissed at Monet as she jack knifed upright, casting her friend a baleful glare. "You hit like a sibling."

Monet sat up, her face shiny with cream as they stared at each other, the covers tumbling from chin to waist.

"You annoy like a sibling," she shrugged her shoulders, throwing her palms up in exasperation.

"You're a young divorcee, which is really chic. You flit from party to party holding your Oh, my status is too new, I need space that seems to be simultaneously catnip and deterrent to everyone. Now, you want to know what Namor is up to? That's really — "

Monet's eyebrows drew into a frown, biting her lips briefly before she said the word. "Selfish."

"Selfish?" Shuri gasped, her hand reflexively pressed against her cheek as if she'd been slapped.

"Well, yesss," Monet dragged out the word. "There are certain things -" she sighed, reaching over to push Shuri's braids off her shoulder.

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Also, if you're acting like this, it probably means that there was more to whatever that semester of marriage than what you let on."

"We slept together a couple of times, if that is what you're meaning."

"Of course," Monet's tones in the dry pan manner Shuri hated, because it meant that Monet was annoyed. She lifted the remote and switched off the hotel's TV that retreated into the wall. The static whispering as the panel closed over, leaving a mirror that reflected their images back at them. Two slender, dark skinned women wrapped in heavily quilted bed clothes , and in matching cream hotel pyjamas. Both of them were similar in terms of temperament and a life's outlook, so it was a shock when they disagreed.

"That is what I'm meaning," Monet slid into her bed covers, and dragged her eye mask over her face. She tapped a space beside her, and Shuri slid down. The chill of the room was a contrast against the snug warmth of the bedclothes and them.

"Don't be mad at me. Or do, if you must," Shuri linked her hands across her chest. "But not for long, I couldn't bear it if it's you."

Felt the press of Monet's lips against her temple as she hugged her. "For someone who's frighteningly smart, you can be dreadfully obtuse."

Shuri hugged her back, half awkward with the bedclothes and lying down, but they managed. Monet, in the way of people who could be annoying, fell immediately into a deep sleep and muted breathing; leaving Shuri with her thoughts and playing with her new ring, something that might have reminded one of a wedding band, but baroque.

She hadn't lied to Monet about sleeping with Namor a couple of times.

The first time, it had been a few days after their marriage. Shuri at sixes and sevens because she'd landed a husband.

"I don't know what to do with you," she'd finally admitted after they'd come back from dinner from the hotel's restaurant downstairs . Normally, this was a doubting thought she'd have kept to herself, but the liquor made her tongue too free. She leaned against the hotel 's bedroom door, kicking off her stilettos and breathing a sigh of relief.

Shuri had chosen this hotel because she'd done a photo shoot here once, and liked the rooms. The elegant drapes shutting the world outside, the incredible overstuffed bed, the sofa comfortable enough to doze off on when you were in the sun's beams like a cat. At night, the lighting was muted and intimate.
Everything here was soft enough to almost romanticise life.

"What do you mean?" he asked, shucking off his dinner jacket and his dress shoes. Shuri didn't move from her position against the door, watching as he undressed, down to his briefs and socks. He was fairly unselfconscious about his nudity, she'd found out in the few days they'd been circling each other. Dropping trousers be it at the beach outside, and walking around in the tiniest speedos ever, or now, in their shared bedroom - with two beds.

But then, looking at the height and breath of him, the muscles shifting under his brown skin as he stopped by the tiny bar fridge in the corner of the hotel room, taking out two medium sized bottles of rose Shuri realised - that he had nothing to be self-conscious about.

He closed the distance between them, offering her one of the bottles, cold with condensation. Shuri accepted the bottle, and looked at it. She probably shouldn't - having drank enough at dinner to float a barge downstream. Thought that she couldn't get any more drunk than she was, so she downed a quarter of the rose in one gulp, finding it simultaneously hot with alcohol but cold from the fridge.

"It's been a couple of days, and although I didn't expect it to feel different, it does. But, this is not the stage I'm looking to improve."

"Divorce," he said.

"Yes," Shuri sighed with relief now that she could feel sensation in her toes , slid down, using the door as a guide to collapse into a heap on the cream carpet, the dark skirt of her dress spilling across her legs as if it were ink.

He sat beside her, the heat of him radiating and warming her.

"How do you want to play this?"

Shuri rubbed at the foil design on the bottle. "I don't know. This stage is transient, as is our relationship."

"Ouch."

"Sorry."

"You're not."

Shuri smirked then, and realised that she liked him. She appreciated that he found the humour in this, and was willing to give her enough rope to see where this ended. The tension being, how far could she go before he tried to yank her back.

"No," she took a swing of her rose, the liquor kicking in because she hadn't eaten much. Nor had he, because they kept gaping at each other over dinner, and hiding their mutual interest and attraction behind sips of orange wine.

They still gaped at each other like now, his hair inching out of the careful style that he'd had combed it in. Shuri observed him under lowered lashes, from his dress socks to his bare legs, thick and heavy because he'd been swimming from a young age up until college. She knew that he still swam as exercise and release, getting up in the morning from his bed, leaving her to sleep in hers.

Her eyes tracked over the columns of his thighs, the outline of his groin, his stomach and tracked the way to his shoulders and face. His lips curled up in amusement, their faces near enough to each other for her to feel his breath on her face.

"We could hold off and have an annulment."

"Annulment? But it means the marriage is invalid. That would be as if it hadn't happened."

She could almost feel his smile. "You're a strange one, Shuri. Most people see divorce as a failure. "

"That's only if you believe in marriage."

"Is there a story here?"

"No," she searched and took a swig from the bottle, and realised - too late - you couldn't drink your way to sobriety. "But I'm still in possession of a husband that I have no idea -"
Found herself hauled across him, her legs astride his, their faces oh so close. She threw her hands out, settled on his shoulders. Lolled her head so that their mouths were a breath apart.

"You can find a use," he whispered against her mouth.

This was new, their lips meeting off centre, and Shuri clung to him, the edges of the world smooth, as she sank into their kiss, her skin steaming with desire as he skimmed his fingers from ankle to high on thigh.

"I could," she agreed between kisses.

"I'm drunk," he laughed against her mouth, his fingers ghosting the edge of her underwear, simultaneously exciting and distracting. "This mightn't work."

Her mouth opened in an 'O', as he stroked at her, her fingernails digging into his shoulders as he thumbed at her. Her eyebrows raised in surprise as she felt the heat and hardness of him.

"I— I think," she gasped, "it just might."

"Please tell me," T'Challa placed his hand over his eyes, "that this isn't a photo of my sister half naked on the walls."

"Prude," Shuri shoulder bumped him.

They were at the charity event for the Almehen's drive with children's charities which were local and abroad, with special interest being projects in the Yucatan. Once a year, they chose a local hotel and turned the hall in the day for food courts and sales of crafts that you could only get here once at this time. Textiles, furniture, jewellery, mouth watering street food.

In the evening, the hall turned into this - drapes, low light, tables and magic. In the glass display the black pearl necklace she'd worn, did an impromptu photo shoot, which had been fun. The beat of music pulsing in her blood, the heat and glare of the lights another layer, and then Namor had walked in - and everything else just snapped in nihilum .

"You like this?"

"Peter Parker is a talent, I'm always happy to work with him."

"Did you look at him like… that?"

When it came to her honour, T'Challa guarded it with the zealousness of an aunty presenting a niece for marriage, which was his way.

Shuri stared at the photo.
It was the size of a movie banner, it was her in close up, cupping her breasts so that the pearls were front and centre. She had been caught in mid expression, going from a smile to a sort of wonder that was reflected in her eyes, in the softness of her mouth. With the sheet blowing up and around her, the translucence of the sheet half obscuring her lower half of her body, like some sort of nymph rising from the surf.
She - hadn't been looking at Peter like that. This set was supposed to have been a lark, something to make the product sizzle. The camera was supposed to capture secrets, not betray them.

"When I'm eighty," she weighed her words with the utmost of care so that her voice wouldn't betray her. "I'll be glad to have taken these."

"I hope your second husband is very forgiving," Monet said as she slid her hand through Shuri's a few minutes later, the crowd thickening as they showed up, admiring the fine display of Tahitian black pearls in the display case.

"Because," she flicked her eyes to the oversized photos displayed. "Wow. All of this for your first?"

"It's just a photo," Shuri shrugged her shoulders, hoping that her feigned nonchalance rang true.

"About the size of a sail," Monet observed.

"What are you trying to say, Monet?" Shuri slid an askance glance at her friend. Monet had the same calculation in her eyes just like the night before when she'd expressed her annoyance. Of course, she defaulted to haughty and oblique as if she were a mythical Sphinx in the desert spitting out riddles instead of answers.

"On average, Tahitian pearls are less valued than South Sea ones. About a fraction of a cost, even if both are naturally formed rather than cultivated. In this instance, you two might have upended that."

"I need that necklace," Shuri stepped forward. It was at the end of the night, everyone else had cleared out to go home. It was just Namor and herself in the empty hall, now cavernous enough to create an echo.

She didn't have enough in her reserve as the price slipped from her, in bidding and she had to keep her hand down, clenching her fists with frustration. She couldn't risk it, not with all her own money funnelled into her venture which was to launch in the third quarter of this year. Monet was wealthy, and had a yen for jewellery but refused to pay over the odds for something that wasn't South Sea pearls and even then -

"You don't get it, do you?" Monet shook her head, her chandelier earrings with their coloured stones catching and refracting the dim light into jewel coloured flames.

"You can't speed run through life hitting targets and phases just because it's in line with your ambition. There are certain experiences that are worth actually living , Shuri, rather than just collecting stamps rather than enjoying the view."

"I don't know what you mean?"

Monet exhaled through her nose, pinching the skin between her eyes.

"Because you're brilliant and obtuse. Ask him for that bloody necklace."

Then if that hadn't been strange enough, Monet hugged her again - a second night in a row - pressing their cheeks together. "Call me when you get caught up."

"Have a good flight, then."

Another tight hug and her friend was gone, swept away by the press of time and leaving her perfume behind.

Now, both of them were here, alone.

The cleaning staff in the next room, the lights gone up, the tables clear. Balloons bobbed about at the foot of the tables like careful children sneaking out to play .
Namor had dressed smartly, but with the evening done, he'd already shucked off his jacket and tie which hung over the chair behind him.
"You want me to wrest it from the bidder?" he asked, tapping his fingers on a nearby table. Its surface cleared of cloth, leaving only naked metal, which made for a cold, almost foreboding tap. She noted the shift of bones under flesh and the veins on the back of his hand, uncomfortably warm by flashes of memory of his hands on her and in her.

"Who's the bidder? Maybe I can convince them -"

"Why?"

"Because it's, because I -" Shuri shook her head, asking a question to answer hers, because she couldn't bear to say it.

"Why did you just — let me go? Not fight."

"A semester husband, remember? To be a divorcee, you needed someone to let you go and not attempt reconciliation when the time came."

She remembered how smug she'd felt when she'd had that line put in the contract. Thrilled at when it had been signed by himself, in his characteristic scratchy signature .
Remembered how the next day, when she reflected on what her new status meant, she'd slowly rotated her rings from her ring finger and threw them in her jewellery box in her bedroom at her family's house before she changed her mind.

"And your-" she cleared her throat and continued. "You said you were dating?"

"That I was looking to date."

"Oh. But you said —"

"What are you trying to say, Shuri?"

"I don't know."

"You do," Namor's voice was low and hard. "You're brilliant, and fluent in your thoughts. Say it."

"It was me," the words tumbled out from her. "That photo, that day," her voice trembled on the edges of it. "You would have gotten those photos to authorise the proofs, and that would have been the reason why you decided to move up the schedule in two months. You-" she refused to cry, refused, although her body trembled with the jumbled emotions of it. "Should have told me why."

"It wouldn't have changed anything. Those three months -" he smiled, and it was wistful. "I actually liked being married to you. Although it wasn't much time."

"I was so focused on getting out -" she wiped at her cheeks roughly. "I didn't-"

She exhaled, confessing freely, because it didn't matter now. "I actually liked being married to you, too."

"But you like being divorced more."

Shuri shook her head and laughed, her nerves all a jangle. "Not now, no."

Namor stopped drumming his fingers on the table.

He straightened, running his hand through his hair, his face open as he said, "Then, let's get married. For real this time."

She looked at him, and saw everything there. That he had waited, until he couldn't, took the risk and forced her to look at herself, with her finally arriving at his heart.

"T'Challa's going to hate this," she laughed again, but out of true amusement because she didn't care.

"Yes," she said, and caught a shiver, because her dress was floaty and sleeveless and not much for the room with the heat turned off. Shuri couldn't feel it, as she launched into a canter, both of them closing the distance and when Shuri was closest, she launched herself, throwing her arms around his neck, her shoes slipping off her feet and bouncing off the floor as he caught her and swung her round.

"Let's get married," she agreed. "For real this time."

END