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It was in London, sitting on the banks of the Thames, that it finally came to a head. Putting into words what Jim had been mulling over since the formation of the Invaders.
The waiting was the worst part. They all agreed on that. Waiting for a mission. Waiting for the Luftwaffe. Waiting for orders. Watching Namor wait, impatient even at the best of times, was almost more frustrating that having to wait himself. Watching Namor, sitting beside him by the river, face hard as stone, only mad him more eager for action.
Namor, for once, refused the water, glaring at it in rage. Almost everywhere else they stopped, he would find the nearest body of water and swim, submerging himself so completely that Jim often wondered if he would return.
“Not swimming?” Jim asked, more to make conversation than anything else.
He would say that his relationship with Namor was different to his relationship with the other Invaders, but that wasn’t really true. Namor’s relationship with everyone was different. There was nothing special about Jim.
“In this?” Namor asked in clear disgust. “There will be a day when they will pay for desecrating the waters.”
When he spoke in that tone, it was all too easy for Jim to remember how they had first met. How they had been enemies. How they had fought.
It still seemed unbelievable that they were no longer, though he wasn’t sure how long that would last.
“Then we will find a peaceful solution,” Jim said firmly. He didn’t want to go from fighting alongside Namor to fighting him once more.
“They are my enemy’s enemy,” Namor said stubbornly. “For now.”
“But we’re not enemies,” Jim said.
Namor looked over the polluted waters, still. “No,” he said eventually. “No, I would not wish for us to be enemies again.”
“Me neither.” Jim said. Namor was difficult to talk to, always quick to take offence. Quick to go off on his own, without regard for orders. He was aware of Namor’s gaze on him, curious and intense, but he couldn’t quite meet it. Couldn’t quite figure out what it was that it meant.
“A temporary alliance,” Namor said, glaring at the filthy waters.
Namor was glad that the youngsters were back in America. Glad that it was just the three of them, sheltering as they waited. Well, the other two sheltered from the rain, he basked in it. The heavens opening, filling the air with water.
Jim looked miserable, as he always did when it rained, and a small part of Namor enjoyed the raindrops all the more for it.
“Not enjoying the weather, firebug?” He asked, his face turned upwards to the skies, water running down his body.
“Glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Steve said wryly, taking a seat on the floor. Once upon a time, the building they sheltered in had likely been a pleasant farmhouse, but that was before the Nazis had swept through, leaving it in ruins. Now, it was nothing more than suboptimal shelter from the storm.
Namor closed his eyes, ignoring them. There was no one else nearby, the rain and destruction chasing everyone but the three of them away. He spun, hopping a little into the air. Flicking his hands out, carefully pointing his fingers as he had been instructed. It wasn’t the same as in water, where the movements were different, but it was the same dance. Just as he had learnt it as a child.
It was moments like this when he could almost forget the weight upon his shoulders. The danger posed by the Nazis. The threat Atlantis was under. The way his grandfather looked at him. The whispers that followed, under sea and over sea.
“Is that a dance?” Steve asked, a hint of a laugh in his tone. He always liked
“I didn’t know you danced,” Jim said, but he supposed what was there that he did truly know of Namor? He kept himself apart, as deliberately enigmatic as the very oceans he came from. As impossible to decode as the damn enigma code.
“I am a prince,” Namor said haughtily, “of course I can dance.” He demonstrated a few more steps, awkward in the air but his audience would never know. Philistine surface dwellers would never be able to appreciate the true beauty of Atlantean dancing.
“You don’t often share much about Atlantis,” Steve commented lightly, very much aware that anything with Namor could be a sore spot.
“Maybe I should,” Namor mused. “After all, are we not…” he hesitated slightly, looking Jim dead in the eye, “friends?”
“I would hope so,” Steve replied genially, as a wave of something like relief washed over Jim. Friends. The three of them were friends.
He smiled at Namor, but Namor had already turned away. “I’ll scout on ahead,” he was saying. “Visibility is minimal with the rain, so I should have the advantage. We must be close to the rendezvous point.”
As he flew off, Jim could still hear the words echoing through his head. They were friends. Not allies, but friends.
Jim struggled. Bucky would know the right words. Steve would know what to say. But Jim was lost. Lost at sea, like their bodies.
Namor was silent. Brooding.
The victory felt hollow. Steve had fought for America, for the Allied forces. Namor had fought against the Nazis. Jim was somewhere in the middle, still not quite sure what place there would be for him in the world now that the war was over. Not quite able to put the memories from his mind.
Not quite sure how much longer Namor would linger in New York, when the fighting was over and his kingdom awaited.
“Namor,” he said, trying. It had been like this with Jacquelin, knowing how he felt but not knowing how to say it. How to show it. As though that was something humans learnt, bit by bit as they grew, but he had not grown up. He’d come into being fully formed. He’d learnt all he could. But not this, and certainly not with Namor.
“What do you have planned now?” Namor asked, direct in his disarming way, making Jim feel like he was being dissected.
“I’m not sure,” Jim answered. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to continue being with Namor, even if they weren’t fighting the war anymore. Maybe they could hunt down escaped Nazis, there must be some somewhere? He was glad the war was over, that the Nazis had been defeated, that Europe had been liberated. But a part of him was not quite ready for it, wanted it to stretch on for longer, to somehow keep going so Namor would stay.
“Some surface world plans, surely?” Namor said. “Find a girl to marry. Partake in the drudgery of surface world customs.”
“There may still be some things left that requires my powers,” Jim said. “And I need to make sure Toro adjusts back to civilian life.”
“And I suppose this is where we part,” Namor said, and Jim surely must be imagining the slight hesitation in his voice. “Go our separate ways. We probably will never meet again.”
“I’m sure we will,” Jim protested, not wanting to think of that. Not wanting to think how Namor would simply disappear into the waters and might never again return to his life.
“Let us hope that should we meet again, it will be as friends,” Namor said, dark and ominous, striking fear into Jim’s heart.
It was his last chance. “Actually, I was thinking,” he said, wishing there was someone to guide him. Wishing he could find the words, harder to come by than ever under the weight of Namor’s gaze. “You and me. I have come to see you, not as a friend.”
Namor held his gaze, and for a moment everything was still.
Jim’s mouth was dry, his heart beating too fast. He knew he needed to say something more, but he had no idea what words he could use. No idea how everything he felt wasn’t written plainly on is face. Namor must know, he thought. Namor was always so perceptive, his senses so sharp. He must hear his heart, feel the heat of his embarrassed flush, see the tremble of his lips.
Namor’s expression tightened. “Understood,” he said with a sharp nod, turning and diving into the waters before Jim could react, leaving him standing alone by the sea.
They met again. Awkwardly. Courtesy of Betty Dean.
She had looked at him, miserable now that Namor had returned to his kingdom, and taken pity. She had sighed when he had recounted their last conversation, putting her head in her hands.
She was the expert at Namor-wrangling.
But she had worked her magic and, a mere three months after Jim’s living heart had leapt into the seas never to return again, he found himself sitting beside him on the sofa, sipping at a cup of tea.
And then, in his hour of need, she had abandoned them with nothing more than the strictest of instructions to not destroy her apartment. Jim would have been offended at the implication, but he knew it was fair. Namor was as unpredictable as the seas, and Jim was a firebomb waiting to go off.
“How’s Atlantis?” Jim asked, trying to make conversation.
“Better,” Namor answered, without any indication as to what he was comparing it to. Better than being on land? Better than it had been during the war?
“It’s strange, now that it’s over,” Jim said. He felt like he had repeated those words over and over again, a million times, but he wasn’t sure if he would ever stop feeling that way. The majority of his life had been spent fighting the war.
“Our temporary alliance over,” Namor said, swirling his tea cup so that it created a whirlpool of tea.
“Don’t become my enemy again,” Jim said. He didn’t plead, but he was close.
“Well, what’s left, if we are not enemies, not allies, and you no longer want to be friends?” Namor replied sardonically, and Jim feared for Betty’s teacup.
“I did not say that.” He protested. “I did not mean that, either.”
That stopped Namor in his tracks. He paused, a frown on his face. Slowly, he set the teacup down, the tea still undrunk, and turned to look at Jim. Jim hated that look, the fierce intensity that felt like he was being stripped bare under it. It made him think of the savagery of water - gentle one minute, yet perfectly capable of beating a man black and blue with enough turbulence. So entirely Namor.
“I don’t want to be your enemy,” Namor said slowly. “I would rather be your friend than your ally. If not friends, what would you choose?”
It was a loaded question, the pistol cocked and ready to fire. Jim didn’t know how he had expected things to go, but it wasn’t like this. That was the problem with Namor, no matter how well you predicted his actions, he always managed to destroy any contingency plans.
Jim knew the answer. He’d found it, located the right word. He opened his mouth, but his silence had dragged on too long.
“I would probably choose lovers,” Namor mused casually, the kind of calm confidence that drove Jim mad.
Jim put down his half drunk cup of tea, in case he spilt it or flung it over Namor. “If you’re mocking me…” he started, his sentence ending prematurely as Namor moved closer. A predator that could hunt down any kind of prey, be they fish or Nazis.
Namor waited, and in that moment it occurred to Jim that he was overthinking. “OK,” he said, bewildered.
“OK?” Namor repeated, huffing in clear annoyance, but Jim’s patience had run its course. Betty’s china was safe. He leant forward, catching Namor’s cold face in his hands, and kissing him.
It was not something he had much expertise in, and he did not know if he wanted to know about Namor. Namor who was only a young man, for all the gravitas with which he held himself. Namor who seemed so worldly and knowing despite being so very literally a fish out of water.
Namor’s hands wrapped themselves around his shoulders, holding them close together even after the kiss was done.
“Not enemies or allies or friends,” Namor said, and Jim remembered how it had been Namor who had first suggested, in the pouring rain, that they might be friends. That their relationship might be more than just professional. Tactical.
“No,” he agreed, confident now. It might bring chaos, but that was all fire or the sea ever brought. “More than that.”