You’d fought and thrashed against them nearly every step of the way even though you knew it wasn’t going to do you much good. You told them to let you go, told them they were making a mistake. You told them everything except the answers to the questions they were asking you.  

What is your name? 

How did you find us? 

What are you here for? 

There were honest answers to those questions, but not one that they would believe. The truth wouldn’t set you free this time. You doubted how much it would even be worth to them by now.  

The guards all but threw you down in front of the throne. Before you even got your palms flat against the cold stone and looked up, you knew who you were going to be looking into the eyes of. You’d felt it in the air the second you’d returned. It was a relief. It was melancholy.  

Still in your crumpled position on the floor, you tilted your head up so that you could see the face of the man they brought you to. He was the only reason you’d come back, after all.  

When his eyes locked onto yours, they widened just slightly, for the briefest moment, before he regained his composure. A leader cannot falter in front of his people, especially not over something like this.  

“They will not say who they are,” one of the guards spoke up. “We found them trying to get in from the westward side of the mountain.” 

M’Baku’s eyes were still on yours. The frown on his face was only partially for show—you knew there was real pain behind it too. “Is that so?” He leaned back, sinking farther into the throne. “Leave us.” 

They knew better than to question him but they still made an attempt. “There isn’t—”  

“I said leave us,” he repeated, firmer this time as he finally forced himself to look away from you and back to his guards. “I believe that I will be able to handle myself just fine against someone who couldn’t even avoid getting caught trying to sneak into our stronghold here.” He pinched his brows together in warning, not needing to say anything more before his men took off.  

As their footsteps receded, you brought yourself back up to your feet. Brushing your hands off on your legs, the taste of the mountain air on your tongue was impossible to ignore. Home.  

“Much harder to sneak back in than it was to sneak out,” he remarked, still sitting sunken into his throne.  

You smiled even though he wasn’t. Something about being spoken to directly by him after so long. He could’ve said nearly anything and you would have had the same reaction. His words soaked into your skin, too busy in the sensation to bother giving him a reply.  

“They could have killed you,” he said, partially because it was true and partially because he wanted to test your reactions to his words.  

“But they didn’t,” you replied simply.  

You saw how those three words made all the rigid, tense edges to him soften. There was still a frown on his face but the rest of his body seemed to smooth over. Like he’d been clenching his fists since you left but now that you were back in front of him again he could finally unfurl his hands.  

“What brings you back to Jabari Land?” he asked.  

It wasn’t lost on you that he was choosing to continue sitting upon his throne to continue this conversation. He could’ve stepped down, put himself on a more level playing field with you. But he kept his distance and the upper hand. You’d done that to yourself, you supposed.  

“I think you know the answer to that.” 

He leaned forward, forearms braced atop the broad surface of his thighs. “It cannot be what I think it is. Because if it was, you wouldn’t have taken so long to come back home.” 

Disagreements were sitting right on the tip of your tongue. You were no stranger to an argument, especially with the man who was sitting in front of you now. But that was what he wanted. All the time apart, all the hurt that had festered in the years and space between you, you both wanted to take that and try to put it on each other. It would’ve been easy to do it, hurling blame across the emotional chasm that separated the two of you. You wanted things to end differently this time, though. By the grace of a thousand gods, you managed to hold your tongue. 

Your newly found sense of self control paid off. Taking your silence as something adjacent to a truce of sorts, M’Baku rose to his feet. Your eyes darted all over him, watching closely as he rested his hands on his knees before pushing himself upright. You’d already been looking up at the throne, but standing at his full height, you were forced to crane your head back just a little farther to keep his face in your eyeline. 

As he stepped down towards you, he was still carrying a heaviness in his facial features. Knitted brows, tension in his jaw highlighted by the frown he had yet to shake. Truce or not, he was still wary of you. The most frustrating part was that you couldn’t hold it against him. 

He didn’t speak up again until the two of you were standing toe-to-toe. He was so close to you now that all it would’ve taken to touch him was the smallest movement on your part. You would’ve hardly had to lean in at all. A simple stretch of your fingers would’ve had you grazing against the fur-lined braces that covered his forearms. It was the closest that the two of you had been in years and yet the look he was giving you seemed to come from miles away. 

Tilting his head, he rephrased his original question. “Why are you here?” 

Refraining from touch had never been so difficult. “To see you.” 

“Why now?” 

You felt his breath fan across your skin as he exhaled. Hopefulness and defeat both existed in the shared air between you. A small wave of bravery went through you, some tiny part of you that didn’t feel like it was buckling under the weight of his stare and the emotions stopped up between you. Extending your hand just slightly, you caught the tips of his fingers with your own. You braced yourself for the possibility of him pulling away. Perhaps it was one touch too far after everything, a pebble kicked that would trigger an avalanche. 

Instead, he enveloped your hand with his own. He traced his thumb across the back of your hand as the callouses of his palm passed beneath your fingers. It was warm, rough, the way you remembered. But his hold was gentle, and you remembered that feeling too. 

Your next words had to fight their way out past the lump that had formed in the back of your throat. “It’s been a long, long time.” 

He nodded, that solemn look still lingering. “I know this.” 

Perhaps you should’ve said more, but there was nothing that you could say to him that he didn't already know. The words I miss you seemed to fall terribly short of what you were really feeling. 

Far from ignorant to the amount of time that had lapsed since you left Wakanda, it was a different thing entirely to see it conceptualized in the way that M’Baku looked now compared to how he’d looked when you left. He’d never been a small man in all the time you’d known him, but now his body had built itself to match the image of himself that he’d always held inside his head. Becoming a leader was always his path, but seeing him now that it’d come to fruition was a truly magnificent experience. You allowed yourself a moment to mourn the fact that you hadn’t been around for a majority of that journey. He’d evolved over the years, but he was still every bit the man you remembered. He was all of that still, and then some. You wondered if he held similar sentiments about you. 

“There are plenty of roads that lead you back here, my love,” he watched as the weight of those last two words caused your eyes to close for a moment, “but you and I know that you being brought to me like this is not one of them. This road is not one of permanence.” 

A statement, not a question. Because he knew that you were both aware of the truth his words held. 

You forced your eyes open despite the tears that were welling in them. “Because I cannot stay.” 

His hold on your hand changed as your words hit the air. You could feel how he wanted to pull away from you but stopped himself. Familiar wounds being opened, but he wasn’t shrinking away from you this time. 

“The world out there is vast, M’Baku,” you said, your tone more pleading than you meant for it to be. “You could see it if you just—” 

“This,” he cut you off, pulling his hand away from yours so he could outstretch both his arms, gesturing to the space around you, “is the world that I am responsible for. What is out there, no matter how much, is not my concern.” 

This wasn’t the first time the two of you fought this fight. Before you left, you’d tried to get him to go with you. He wouldn’t then, and as soon as you’d come back you knew that there was even less of a chance now. The stakes were too high, too many people relying on his strong shoulders to carry the weight of it all. But you were only human, and you had to try. So you did.  

“I am out there,” you said, a reminder that made him flinch. Perhaps one thing was his concern. 

The same hand that had been holding yours was now cupping your face. His thumb hooked beneath your chin, forcing you to keep looking him in the eye. “And that is your choice,” he said, more sadness in his tone than you had been prepared for. “I cannot make you stay—I never could.” 

You leaned into his palm and allowed your eyes to close for a moment. Being touched with so much love was something that had been just a distant memory for so long now. You were afraid that one day you’d wake up and forget the way he felt. It was reassuring to know that you hadn’t been viewing it through rose-colored glasses all this time, that it really did feel this way to be held by him. 

Your eyes were still closed when you felt the press of his lips against yours. Instinct took over, reflexes you hadn’t needed in a long time. Leaning into him, you placed your hand on the back of his head and pulled him closer to you. He could taste the hunger on your lips as you kissed him back. You soaked it up, the way that he wrapped his arms around you and locked you tightly to him. The feeling of him was all-encompassing, fur and leather and skin.  

There wasn’t a single part of you that wanted to come up for air, content to drown in the taste of him and the shared breaths passing between you. Suddenly there was no great big world out there, no Wakanda, no Jabari Land. It was just the two of you and all the rest of it fell completely away.  

His forehead was pressed against yours even after he broke the kiss. The plate of armor covering his chest did nothing to hide the deep, heaving breaths that he was taking. You didn’t open your eyes, not yet willing to be back in reality. Instead you breathed him in, the feeling of his nose brushing against yours, of his beard while you dragged your fingers through it.  

“You know what I'm going to say,” he finally broke the silence, his voice lower than it had been. 

You nodded, a small gesture, determined not to break the connection the two of you currently had. “I know.” You kissed him, quick and soft on the lips. “And you know what I'll say in return.” Another pause, another kiss. “So don’t say it.” 

When he pulled away from you, it was the first time you really felt the chill of the mountains, goosebumps rising over your skin now that you were no longer catching the warmth radiating off of him. He wasn’t frowning like he had been before, but you could still see the hurt in his eyes. You were holding your own brand of pain in yours too. 

“I hope you find your way back here to stay, my love,” he said, the gentlest beginning of the end you’d ever experienced. 

It still felt like a punch to the gut. The lump in the back of your throat returned. “I—” 

“But until you find that road,” he reached, cupping your face in both of his hands, “do not come back here just to break my heart another time.” 

Tears on your cheeks, you nodded. There was no argument against what he had said that had any legs to stand on. He leaned in, pressing his forehead against yours once more. You each took a deep breath in at the same time, that sense of deja vu creeping back into your bones. He was kind enough to brush the tears off your cheeks as he pulled his hands away. 

You knew that you had to leave, but you couldn’t force yourself to move. It wasn’t until M’Baku nodded towards the door that would allow you to slink down off the mountain and out to the rest of the world the same way you had so long ago that you finally forced it. You stole one last touch on your way out, reaching to cup his face and run your thumb along his cheekbone. It was fleeting, but he still chased it for a moment after it passed. Then all he could do was watch you leave again, wondering how hard it was for you not to turn around and look at him. 

Marvel Taglist (please let me know if you'd like to be added!): @late-to-the-party-81 @garbinge @artemiseamoon @blackhawkfanatic