Spider-Man joins the avengers

Part 29

PETER

Shuri was quick to leave, but unable to go far. She'd run down the stairs, back down to the lab, but stopped halfway down.
I left Steve and the others, Tony with his hand to his forehead, lost as to what to do. I slow down as I see Shuri sitting on the steps, no longer crying, just staring blankly ahead.
'Hey.' I say lightly, resting her mood, whether she'd prefer to be alone or not. She stays silent, eyes clenched shut. 'You okay?' I ask, the most stupid question, but also the first one that always comes to mind. She stays still for a moment, but shakes her head, tears starting again and I hurry down to her side. I hold her in my arms as she cries into my shoulder.
'I hated him.' She says, leaning back, 'for twelve days I hated him. That's how long it took my brother to find and out and tell me that it wasn't him that killed our father.'
'You thought he killed your dad?' I ask, surprised.
'Back at the accords, there was a summit way back when everyone was fighting each other.' She says.
'Oh yeah. I remember that.' I think back to the airport, think back to when Mr.Stark was sitting with Aunt May in my home. It hurts to think how much has happened since then. It hurts to think of May still. If Mr.Stark hadn't have come that day, Aunt May would still be alive. I'd never thought of it hat way before.
'We were led to believe that Bucky, as the Winter Soldier, has bombed the building. But it wasn't him.' She says, 'but for those few days, I hated him.'
'That's understandable.' I say.
'But it held on for a while. In my head I knew he wasn't to blame, but the hatred was still there for the first time I saw him. My brother had brought him to Wakanda and I did not want him there. I first saw him in ice. And I hated him still.'
I stay quiet, waiting for her to go on. 'When I had found a way to take away the power Hydra had over him, we bought him out the ice. He was quiet. I brought him his meals every day and I told him things to do. I came down early one day and he had taken his metal arm off. He lay it to one side and sat beneath a tree. I asked him why he'd taken it off and he didn't tell me. I left and the next day I did the same, came down early, saw the arm and asked him. I did that for two weeks. Then I stopped. And then, after a month had passed of this...this empty relationship, I came down with his meal and he started talking.'
'He told me that the metal arm reminded him of everything he'd done. Everyone he'd hurt. Everyone he'd killed. It wasn't his mind, but it was his body. And it was that metal arm. He told me that he hated how reliant he'd become on something that Hydra had made. He told me that he wanted to live as much of his life without the arm as he could. So I took the arm with me and I told him to live without it. I studied it and I destroyed it. And I made him a new one. And I realised I no longer hated him, I loved him as I loved my brother.'
Her words hang emptily in the stairwell, almost as if she had been reliving her experience in Wakanda. 'I'm sorry, Shuri.' I say after a moment.
'He never wanted war.' She says in a fierce voice, She was angry, 'He didn't want any of this.'
'None of us do.' I say. She closes her eyes and breathes in and out slowly.
'This ends.' She says, 'I have a plan.'