– 𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐀 || 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐫
SUMMARY: If you were only ever created to serve Arishem, it did not feel like it. Not when you’d grown to cherish your people in the South Pacific and the entirety of Earth as reverently as you did and not when your heart, artificial or not, belonged to a man from beneath the sea. PAIRINGS: Namor x Eternal!Reader TAGS/WARNINGS: fluff ; light angst ; spoilers for Eternals (2021)
If you were only ever created to serve Arishem, it did not feel like it.
Not when you’d grown to cherish your people in the South Pacific and the entirety of Earth as reverently as you did and not when your heart, artificial or not, belonged to a man from beneath the sea.
In the aftermath of Ajak’s death, of Sersei’s frantic call that detailed what was happening–it didn’t take you too long to gather your belongings, to retrieve all the documents you needed just in case before you rushed behind your house, down the pathway and towards the secluded formation that was hidden deep behind your home.
In the cove you’d created decades ago, he waits for you as he always does. Somehow always finding his way back to your little hideout, again and again, as devoted as the waves that lapped at your shore.
Skin beaded with water, dark eyes pinned on you, always on you–the man you find does not match the names he’d been given over the past five hundred years, a fraction to your own existence.
K'uk'ulkan. Niño sin amor. Namor.
Legends only ever depicted him as one of two things: The merciless feathered serpent god worshipped by a long existing culture or the child without love, he who would light the world aflame if only he was not shackled to the ocean.
Here in this refuge you’d created, however, you’d learned that he was more than just that. Had spent nearly four hundred years unearthing every cavern of his mind, body and soul.
Without saying it, you know his worry has guided him through the currents today.
“I came to make sure you were unhurt after the Earthquake,” he says lowly, lacking the teasing lilt he often greeted you with. “But it seems you might know more than me already...”.
The armour you wear is dappered in metallic [favourite colour] with [complimentary colour] accents, something he has not seen before in all of your years together.
Wearing it not even a week after the world felt Tiamut’s movement is all the evidence he needs, a damning fact that the tremors felt all over the world are more than what they are.
Slowly, Namor rises from the water and as he does, sea-foam bubbles around him, the worry you weren’t even aware had begun to fester dispersing just the same.
“I take it this is not for pleasure?” he continues, his nonchalance contradicted by the twitch of winged ankles.
“I’m afraid not,” you reply in lieu of your normal greeting.
His eyes linger on the glow of your hands, of the way your shoulders and arms are taught in a way he is unfamiliar with and you’re warmly reminded that he is not the only one who has been made bare before in this cove.
As detailed as you can, you explain to him what you had learned in the past few hours: Arishem had created your family to evolve the human species, not for their own betterment; but so their progression could provide enough energy for a Celestial to emerge from the Earth’s core once the Deviants were eliminated.
The world is ending, you reveal, almost choking on the cold, ugly truth.
When Sersei had explained it the first time, between rasped breaths and soft cries, you didn’t allow yourself time to lament what it all meant.
But now, seeing what you’ve come to consider the architect of your very being in front you, the truth unravels in a way that you cannot deny what it is.
An anchor that will drown you, or has drowned you already, considering all you’ve lost before. The people, memories, the love.
"We’ve never fought a Celestial before,” you admit, thinking of Thena, anguished and desperate, the echo of infinity seared into her gaze, before you think of your people and of him. “But we want this planet to be our last. I want it to be my last.”
It is not the words, but they might as well be.
In an instant, Namor grips your wrist, pulling you back into him as you huff with surprise.
His arms band around your waist, keeping you caged where he can nose along the column of your neck, hear the hitch in your breath at his closeness.
“If this is then true, tell me why I shouldn’t persuade you to stay with me?” he growls lowly at the base of your throat, easily shifting between calm and not, as fluid as the sea. “I could compel you to stay here where it’s safe, where you can stay here with me,”.
You can’t help but groan under the ministrations of his teeth on your skin when he begins to nibble, hands moving towards his face as you summon every ounce of sensibility in you to turn his head away. A hard feat, given the way your blood sings as slivers of his siren melody bleed into his words.
“Because though you would rather see the world burn, you would protect your people by any means necessary,” you gasp, feeling your fondness for him swell when he stills, caught.
For Talocan, Namor would protect his Kingdom by any means and at any cost. Even if he despised the rest of the world and would gladly burn the surface asunder, he would not condemn his people to burn, too.
You and your family, as splintered as they’ve come to be, are the greatest gamble he can take to save them and everyone else. Even if it means he can’t join you.
Silent in his defeat, Namor–sweet, enchanting Namor– tilts your head to his languidly, leaning forward and bringing you in a kiss that makes you both want to leave and surrender yourself to him all at once.
Humming, he slots your mouths together even more as he shifts you in his arms, and you have to swallow the moan the bubbles in your throat once he pulls away, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips.
“The ocean has given me many miracles, mi puksik’al. But it has also given me many tragedies...” he says hoarsely, after a moment.
Leaning his forehead against your own to stare you deep in the eyes, it’s a wonder he’s only ever been called cruel and monstrous things when he all he is is bewitching. Wondrous even as he pleads: “I cannot afford one more, [Your Name].”
As he breathes, you press your nose against his and do the same. Feeling your heart break and mend all at once as you take life from his breath.
When you first landed on Earth, you found that there was no greater resource on the planet than its ocean. Deep, vast and endless. A force that could give as easily as it took away.
You’d revered it and its various forms the same way you did the man before you. Perhaps less than him now, you admit in this moment, when he leans back and brushes his lips against the crown of your head.
“Come back to me,” comes the murmur. “Meent’ uts”.
Closing your eyes, all you can do is nod as you take in the scent of salt and tears, rasping, “E lele le toloa ae ma’au i le auvai” as you surge upward to breathe him in once more.
NOTES:
Since all the Eternals all belong to different ethnic groups, Reader is Polynesian. I imagine her living somewhere on the island of Niue, as it is a coral atoll and has natural coves and chasms already though you can imagine otherwise.
The way Reader “takes life from his breath” when pressing their forehead against Namor’s references the Maori people and the action of the hongi, which recalls the Māori legend of the creation of the first earthly woman, Hineahuone. She was formed from clay by the creator god Tāne, who then breathed life into her nostrils.
“E lele le toloa ae ma’au i le auvai” is a Samoan proverb meaning that life may take someone far from home but they will always return. Case and point: Reader and Namor.
E lele le toloa ae ma’au i le auvai = The toloa bird flies far, but will always return to the water.
I am not an expert in the Mayan/Yucate language, which I believe is the main language Namor speaks, but I’ve taken the following translations from various online sources and apologise sincerely if its not quite right. Please correct me where I’m wrong and I’ll note it down for future reference. I’d also appreciate any reputable linguistic sources for all my fanfics moving forward, but anyway:
mi puksik’al = my heart
Meent’ uts = please