Joy ride (part1): Stealing

visit a friend

Shuri marches into the Intensive Care room right on her mother's heels. Hard and business-like. A woman on a mission, with only a hint of tension to her shoulders. The merest suggestion of a frown on her brow. James is impressed by the facade. Until she moves past her mother and intercepts the leading doctor, addresses her eagerly; nearly frantically: "What can I do?"

The doctor smiles and offers a chart to the queen, then gestures at the large bed holding a shockingly small looking Wanda Maximov. "Nothing, my princess. Nothing but wait."

The Red Witch. It strikes James how normal she looks, lying there. Human. Not even artificial; there's nothing hooked up to her but a single line into a vein, no doubt to keep her hydrated. No beeping machines or breathing tubes or anything. But there's probably a thousand machines set up to monitor her without any visible obtrusion. Wakandans do strike him as the type to take offence at the visual unpleasantries that go with sickness.

Even the doctor is a pleasant looking woman, with a soft manner and well manicured hands. Her gestures are round and calming. Her voice is a whisper of kindness over steel nerves. James may well remember her, from before his nap in the ice. But perhaps all Wakandan doctors are just like this: motherly women unwilling to rush for any man, woman or princess.

Shuri, not easily deflected, snorts. "It's a coma, not a nap. Now, I'd like to start with scanning her brain waves."

"Actually," the doctor cuts in smoothly, "this is like a nap. Only she cannot wake up yet, because she is lost in her dreams. Please, princess, my queen. We have experience enough with dreamers getting lost to keep her body healthy and working for months if need be..

"Months?!" Shuri cuts herself off, tempers her volume. "Well, I think I can make sure that won't be necessary."

James can feel the queen's gaze slide past him where he lurks a little too close; like the princes' shadow. She notes, catalogues and then dismisses him as not a priority, and James counts this as a win. "Dear daughter, I feel your pain." The queen closes in, puts a comforting arm around her daughter.

"I have to do something." Shuri admits, deflating.

The radiating smile the mother bestows on her daughter loosens something in James's guts that does not belong there. It surprises him so much that he nearly loses the pleasant, vacant expression pointed at the pair.

The mother does not notice, eyes Shuri. "You can. Talk to her. Care. Your voice may bring her home.. I will convene with our dreamers and ask for them to look for her spirit." with a smile and a delicate finger steering her chin back up, Ramonda is gone. Shuri drops down to a chair at Wanda's side, takes her hand. She deflates even further. "She was going to check out around DC. No Wakandan spirit walker can go that far."

James just grunts, though he makes it as empathic as he can. Steps closer, and tries not to seem too happy about this situation. This chance to get closer to his new best friend, Shuri. Well, James was never fond of the Witch. Wanda was not his friend. But she's not really Hydra, wasn't ever really. So she could have been. Perhaps. Scary as she is with her unwordly powers.

Still, if it's scary women he dislikes James is pretty sure he is falling hard for what his previous caretakers would consider their worst nightmare. Zemo would have had fits at the thought of putting a black woman in power. Would have proclaimed it as the end of the world. And; well. In some ways he wouldn't have been wrong. It's a shame she's the peace-loving kind, really. James sits by her the rest of the day, and the next. And after that, Shuri is incapable of sitting still any longer.

He can see that sharp mind running, now. Needing a project. Shuri tries to get in on the meetings about Wanda's healing. Thinks up the most outlandish science to help her. But apparently the dreamers are all of the same mind: this is one thing that should be waited out. Shuri is frustrated; angry. Obsessed sometimes. She plans and fumes, and James is her accomplice. At one point James lets it drop that he could help her spy on the old crones's meeting next time and Shuri eagerly accepts his invitation.