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Every morning when Shaun wakes, he touches the postcard on his bedside table.

Lingling always liked to draw as a child. He’s not sure where she got the talent – his mother’s art skills extended to stick figures and no further. But you couldn’t find a table in their house that didn’t have at least one Lingling sketch on it. She drew people, landscapes, battles from Baba’s stories, fairytale characters, movie scenes – you name it, his meimei drew it.

Her favorite subjects to sketch, though, were always animals. Cats romped, snakes slithered, puppies sprawled, horses whinnied, birds swooped. In the years after his mother’s death, she drew almost exclusively animals. The people vanished from her art.

Now Shaun traces the clean decisive lines of the dragon every morning, and remembers. Remembers the little girl who loved so deeply, and who drew her heart out on her sketchbook pages.

At the Golden Daggers club, his grownup sister – a dangerous, razor-sharp woman – tells him that she didn’t send the postcard. It flutters to the floor between them when his father’s men storm the club, and when he and Katy flee, it stays there.

Later, in the helicopter, he realizes that he knows now where Lingling got the talent.

Xialing sends Shang-Chi a postcard for his birthday.

She could’ve drawn the Great Protector, or one of Ta Lo’s legendary creatures. He thinks they would have been an epic subject for her pen.

Instead, she’s drawn the three of them – Shang-Chi, Katy, and Xialing – laughing together over a board game. He remembers that game from her visit last month, remembers his amazing comeback and thrilling victory. He remembers even better the way his heart swelled, having Xialing at his side, laughing with Katy and protesting game moves and complaining about the brands of beer they stocked in their fridge.

He turns the postcard over.

Happy birthday. Even though you totally cheated.

He smiles, and runs his finger across the words.

Then he hangs the postcard on his fridge.

His father hands him a knife. It feels heavy, though it’s not.

Shang-Chi recognizes it instantly. His father never displayed weapons when Shang-Chi was a child, but after his mother died and they moved to the compound, weapons became commonplace backspace scenery.

This one, however, has been in his father’s study for years, displayed in pride of place. It’s a plain blade with a simple hilt, nothing over-elaborate or ornate like some of the men carry. Shang-Chi asked once about it, and his father told him that it was the blade he carried in war for centuries, the blade that helped him burn a swathe through Asia. The Rings may have done most of that work, but a man always needs a blade, for any throats that need cutting.

His father’s stories were magical when he was a child. After his mother died, they turned much darker.

“It is your right to finish this for both of us,” his father says, the confidence and pride shining out of his eyes. “And when you return, we will rebuild the Ten Rings to what it once was.”

The rings clank as he presses their foreheads together in farewell.

When the deed is done, and Shang-Chi flees into the night, he leaves the knife at the scene. It’s covered in blood. So is he – oh, not physically. His father trained him too well, all those long brutal years under the Death Dealer’s hands. Shang-Chi has not a drop of blood on him.

And yet he feels as if he is bathed in it, and will never be clean. He cannot forget that last look of terror, from a man old before his time, a man who murdered his mother and lived in hiding ever after for fear of his father’s vengeance. That man did not expect a boy with his father’s knife to appear at his door, inexorable as the tide.

Shang-Chi leaves the knife and the boy behind forever.

~

After it is all over, and they return to the compound from Ta Lo, Shang-Chi visits his father’s study.

The knife is where it always was, cleaned and shining.

Shang-Chi picks it up, running a finger over the sharp edge. He can see his father, coming to look for his vanished son, finding only the bloody remnants of a job completed. He can see his father bending down to pull the knife from the body, staring at it as if it held the answer to why his son was gone.

Can he bear to play the scene further?

His father, tracking down the boy on the run, the boy who lived on the California streets for a year. Or did he not find him until Shang-Chi reemerged as a teenage foster child, calling himself Shaun Lee, his own name and his mother’s, barely repackaged into an American form? Or not until Shaun settled in to his new American life, full of boisterous laughter and Katy’s friendship and not a single weapon ever in sight?

He wonders when his father decided to give him his freedom.

He wonders if his father ran his finger over this knife sometimes, and remembered the little boy who used to sit on his knee and beg for stories, back when they were still a happy family.

He puts the knife back in its place, and leaves without a word.

“That’s so pretty,” his date says, touching his pendant.

Shaun, who is wearing the pendant and nothing else at the moment, smiles. “Thanks,” he says, and starts moving down her body.

“Where did you find it? Or is it a Chinese thing?”

Shaun resists the urge to bite his lip. She didn’t mean anything by it. Just another hot clueless white girl – he thinks this one is Emily, or Hannah, or is it Madison?

“No,” he says, and smiles to avoid making her feel awkward. “My mother gave it to me.”

“Aww, that’s sweet,” Emily-Hannah-Madison says.

Shaun has worn the pendant every day since his mother hung it around his neck. It’s always warm, touched by his body heat; sometimes he thinks, fancifully, that it’s almost alive. He doesn’t even take it off to shower, as the water doesn’t bother it, and it’s as much a part of him as his hands or his shoulders.

And yet he never forgets it’s there.

He shakes his head to clear it, and resumes his self-imposed mission to make Emily-Hannah-Madison stop asking awkward questions and start moaning loud enough to annoy the neighbors instead.

When he loses the pendant on the bus, he is staggered by how deeply he feels its absence. His collarbone feels naked, his throat empty. He keeps lifting a hand to touch it, and only brushing skin.

He wonders, the fifth time he finds himself doing it on the plane, if he has always touched the pendant to ground himself, or if he’s only started since he lost it. He wonders why his father wanted it so badly, that he would take the one thing Shaun still had of his mother’s.

He wonders, and his fingers trace the shape, as if they could call the pendant back.

~

After they return from Ta Lo, and Shang-Chi has left the knife where it lies in his father’s study, Katy finds him.

She opens her hand, and on her palm is the pendant.

“I went to the dragon head,” she says, sounding shy. “I thought you might want this back. I already gave Xialing hers – she seemed to know which was which.”

Shang-Chi takes the pendant, and feels an almost physical sense of comfort wash over him. Yes, this is his pendant, the last gift from his mother. It’s as if she still lingers around it somehow, or perhaps it’s his memories and love for her that make his hand clench and his heart swell.

“You always used to touch it when you were nervous,” Katy says. “I know how much it means to you.”

“It does,” Shang-Chi says, hearing the unevenness in his voice. “Thank you, Katy.”

She stretches up on tiptoe and presses a kiss to his cheek, and leaves him alone with his memories.

Ever since Shang-Chi can remember, there’s been a little baby hand trustingly pressed in his.

He takes his responsibilities as gege very seriously. He keeps Lingling safe, and plays with her even when she wants to play the same game for so long he gets bored. He takes the blame when she breaks one of Mama’s vases by throwing a ball in the house, and he teaches her how to skip on one foot properly.

When Mama dies, Shang-Chi sits by Lingling’s bed for hours, holding her hand and stroking her hair, so that she won’t be alone. For months she wakes up with nightmares, and he lets her crawl into his bed and curl up with him, even though her face is wet when she presses it into his shoulder and her feet are cold against his shins.

When Baba changes overnight, and is no longer the Baba they have always known, Shang-Chi turns himself into Lingling’s rock instead. He considers it his job to make her laugh at least two times every day, and no matter how tired he is after training all day, she is his number one priority. He tells her bedtime stories when she can’t fall asleep, and creates entire fantasy worlds with her during the daytime, worlds beyond the cold prison of their new lives.

And when she begs him to teach her how to fight, he braves the possibility of his father’s anger and gives her all the knowledge he can. He leaves his spare darts where she can practice out of sight, and when his father goes away on business he teaches her all the holds, throws, and moves he can. It’s not enough, but when Shang-Chi closes his eyes at night he still sees the men who came for his mother; he will give Lingling every weapon he knows, so that she would not be helpless if they came for her.

But if they come for her, Shang-Chi will be there before they can reach her.

The day he leaves to kill his mother’s murderer, he tells Lingling he will be back in three days, and he means it. He is able to leave her, because he truly believes, with the innocence of youth, that he will be able to avenge his mother’s murder and walk away unchanged. It is only justice, after all. He will execute justice, and then he will return to Lingling’s side.

It doesn’t go that way.

~

His meimei is no longer a child, but a ruthless businesswoman and a fearsome fighter.

Her bruises stretch across his body, and his nose is bleeding. He will feel every blow when he wakes tomorrow, stiff and sore.

She is wary and resentful, with a smile like barbed wire and words sharp enough to cut.

But despite all of that, Shang-Chi’s heart is full and his soul sings.

Because she just did what he didn’t have the strength to do ten years ago: she gave up her own escape and put herself back into the hands of a father she fears, in order to save him.

However damaged they are, however rightfully angry she is at him, he will make this right.

It will take time. Maybe a lot of time.

But Shang-Chi’s sister is at his side again, and that is precious beyond compare.

He can see in her eyes that Mrs. Sullivan doesn’t understand why nice Shaun Lee, polite and friendly and never in trouble, won’t even consider going to college. Sure, his grades are nothing too special – his teachers say he’s smart but a bit of a slacker – but they aren’t bad, and he’s fluent in four languages and his history teacher loves him. Shaun’s essays always come back with things like “Great job! Almost felt like I was there!” written on them.

“Sorry, Mrs. Sullivan,” he says. “Maybe when I’m older I’ll take some night classes and get my degree that way. But I want a place of my own.”

Comprehension dawns in the guidance counselor’s face. He won’t be the only foster child she’s encountered, and his desire for his own apartment and financial independence won’t be new to her. Now that she can put him in a box she understands, he will lose interest for her as a problem.

Shaun’s been capitalizing on that human tendency for years now.

“It’s expensive in San Francisco,” she says. “Rents these days! Are you sure you want to stay in the city? If you moved up north a few hours, it’s much more reasonable up there on your own.”

Up to far-north California, where everyone is pretty much either white or Hispanic (or a cow), and he’d stick out like a sore thumb for his father to find him? Shaun doesn’t think so.

Besides, he lived in isolation before. Now he’s a city boy, through and through. He likes all-night places, being able to stroll through the city in the middle of the night with Katy and duck in for a greasy 3am snack. He likes karaoke, and every cuisine in the world at his fingertips, and public transit that may suck but means he doesn’t ever have to buy a car. He likes the loudness and the bustle, the color and the anonymity, the sheer largeness of a place that’s bigger than he is and doesn’t care a fig about him, and his close friendship with the woman who does.

“I’m a San Francisco guy,” he says, giving her the full cheesy boyish smile he’s perfected that charms older ladies. “If I have to have ten roommates, I’ll just make sure they all do their own dishes.”

(He won’t have ten roommates. He’ll live in a box and work two jobs if he has to. He wants his own four walls, and to be able to come at home at night and let his guard down, or as down as he ever can.)

Mrs. Sullivan laughs, and wishes Shaun good luck with his job search.

The Fairmont doesn’t pay much, but the tips are good – especially because he flirts with everyone, Katy says in mock annoyance – and he’s able to afford his little converted garage that’s all his own. He may never be rich, but he has a stable job, his own place, a getaway fund if he needs to run at a moment’s notice, and a city he’s fallen in love with.

And then one day he uses the getaway fund to leave it all behind and buy two international plane tickets, because of a sketched postcard and a stolen pendant and a childhood vow.

~

Shang-Chi barely recognizes his life these days.

Being an Avenger doesn’t pay the bills, but the bank account Xialing insisted on setting up for him does. “You can’t buy dinner with the Ten Rings,” she said. “Dad’s empire is more than capable of supporting us.”

Plus he and Katy have a new apartment, a sunny cozy place that was apparently where his father’s watchdog lived in order to keep an eye on him. Now it’s theirs, which Katy says is oddly poetic. Shang-Chi paid a moving company to clean it out, had the Avengers security team sweep it for bugs, and then let Katy loose to make it into a home again.

Katy’s training with Wong, which is weird but nice, and Shang-Chi is friends with people like Bruce Banner and Thor and Shuri now, which is – what even is his life? Plus Scott and Hope come over for Taco Tuesday sometimes.

So far he hasn’t had to deal with the media, but he knows that’ll come his way sooner or later. He had a taste of that with the whole Bus Boy nonsense, but at least then nobody knew his name. All the earlier Avengers have become media pros, though, so it’ll be his turn soon enough.

He wonders if Mrs. Sullivan saw the Bus Boy video, and if she recognized him. He wonders what she would say if she saw him now.

Shaun falls in love with Katy so slowly, so naturally, so gently, that he doesn’t even notice until it’s just a fact of life. The sun rises in the sky. Sourdough is the best American bread. Shaun Lee is in love with Katy Chen.

She is a joyous sunburst on a rainy day, a climactic key-change in a song, a delicious dinner someone cooked for you after a long tiring day.

Shaun loves her like he breathes.

But as easily as he lost his heart to her, he doesn’t think he has hers in return. And unless he does, he won’t say a word. Her friendship is too dear to him, her trust too precious.

He is hers, however she wants him.

~

It’s Katy’s first birthday in their apartment.

Shang-Chi’s hung balloons on her bedroom door handle and streamers in every room, cooked dinner (Xialing came early for an impromptu dumpling-making party, and Shang-Chi tried not to gloat about the fact that his dumplings are far prettier), and wrapped his presents as nicely as he can.

“Oh!” Katy says when she comes in the door, her mouth a perfect round O of surprise.

“Happy birthday!!” Shang-Chi and Xialing chorus, slightly out of sync.

“You guys,” Katy says, beaming.

After their little party, Katy and Shang-Chi are out on the balcony with their wineglasses. (Xialing keeps earlier hours, and is already asleep in Shang-Chi’s bed. He’ll take the couch.)

“So,” Shang-Chi says, waving his glass at the city lights. “Three months since Ta Lo. How are you liking our new lives, now that you’ve had a chance to get used to them?”

Katy smiles ruefully. “I’m not sure you ever get used to Kamar-Taj. But Wong is like, the best boss ever. Way better than Jumpin’ Joseph.”

Shang-Chi had forgotten all about their old boss, who got fired last year for falsifying his timesheet. “Wouldn’t take much to rise above that bar.”

“True,” Katy says.

She looks especially beautiful tonight, Shang-Chi thinks, in the part of his brain that he allows to go down that road. He usually manages to keep it fenced off. Her eyes are pure starlight.

“There’s only one thing I’d change about our lives,” Katy says.

Shang-Chi instantly refocuses on her. “Let’s make it happen.”

“It’s a present I want for my birthday,” she says, her tone playful and her eyes all crinkled up at the corners. “But you didn’t get it for me.”

“Oh no,” he says, matching her tone. “You probably told me about it, didn’t you. I’ll forget my own head one day. Name it, and I’ll run out and get it right now, or order it from Amazon. Or – is it something like ‘get Thor, Sam, and Bucky to come play charades at my birthday party’?”

“They’d be very good at charades,” Katy says, distracted.

“Or…”

“Oh my god,” Katy says, “for your birthday we are definitely inviting everyone out for karaoke. We know Wong’s pretty good. Who else might possibly have hidden talents?”

Shang-Chi knows one thing for sure. “Not Bruce. Guy can’t carry a tune to save his life. But he’d have fun.”

“Anyway,” Katy says, and reaches out and takes his wineglass away. She sets both the glasses on their balcony table. “Back to my birthday gift.”

“Sorry. Continue.”

Katy tips her chin up, meeting his eyes straight on. “I want a birthday kiss.”

Shang-Chi stops breathing.

“Unless you don’t want to,” she says, but she doesn’t sound or look like she thinks that’s the case. “But I think you should know that I’ve tripped over my own feet and fallen quite ridiculously in love with you.”

Shang-Chi is having trouble remembering words, any words at all, and he speaks four languages.

Katy’s eyes are soft, so soft, so alight. “It’s probably the abs,” she says, and pokes him in the chest.

Shang-Chi abandons the futile search for words and decides to become a man of action instead.

Katy tastes like wine, kisses like coming home, and feels like a caught rainbow in his arms.

“I love you too,” he says, choked, when they at last break for air. “But you probably knew that.”

“I hoped you did,” she says, and touches his cheek with fingertips that burn.

After that there is no more talking for a very long time.

And Shang-Chi doesn’t sleep on the couch after all.

(Xialing heckles them in the morning, but she’s also grinning.)

Shang-Chi is twelve when an American terrorist hits on the idea of using the Ten Rings to frighten America in order to go after Tony Stark, and sets up a pretend mastermind to be the titular head of his fake duplicate. It all seems a bit crazy to him, but his father is incensed at the mockery, and even more furious that the pretend mastermind was given the hollow sinister name of The Mandarin.

Privately Shang-Chi thinks that the American terrorist was probably right that the Americans would’ve just laughed at the actual names his father has been given throughout history. “The Ten Rings, led by the Warrior King” doesn’t sound quite right. And “The Ten Rings, led by The Most Dangerous Man on Earth” sounds like a circus act.

But his father has given the same rant about names and how important they are at least three times now, and if Tony Stark hadn’t already killed the terrorist, he’s sure his father would’ve taken him apart very slowly.

Later, he thinks about that rant of his father’s, when he leaves behind his old name.

Xu Shang-Chi is his father’s son, a weapon and a killer, who wasn’t able to save his mother and who has left his sister alone and friendless.

Shaun Lee is a teenager with a shadowed past, but someone at the start of a new life. What will come next, who can say? It’s his life, and this time Shaun will build it himself.

~

“You are a product of all who came before you. The legacy of your family, the good and the bad, it is all a part of who you are.”

His father’s rant has been displaced by his aunt’s words. Shang-Chi would never have defeated his father, or the Dweller in Darkness, without accepting himself and his powers – all of himself.

Now he has reclaimed his original name, but he hasn’t given up the second. He is Xu Shang-Chi, his father’s son and his mother’s, the legacy and heir of both. He has accepted that, and in time he will make his full peace with it.

But he is also Shaun Lee, the man who created himself. He is the American boy who built his own life and found his own happiness, full of laughter and silliness and late nights and boba, history walks and karaoke and his own four walls he earned himself, friends and lovers and Katy.

Everything he has lost over the years, he has found again and made new.

He’s Lingling’s gege, and Katy’s love, and his parents’ legacy, and the Avengers’ new hero.

He is all these things at once.

He is himself.