“We are extending a great deal of trust, here,” King T’Chaka said, his expression serious. “Not all agree that this is wise.”
“Baba, if we have learned anything from recent days, it is that we have no other choice. Wakanda can no longer simply watch from the shadows.” T’Challa turned, casting his gaze around the throne room and lingering on several of the other, less-impressed looking occupants as he spoke. He was talking to them, more than his father. The king had already made his decision; this little back and forth was mostly just for the Council’s benefit. “There are threats in this world—and from beyond it—that Wakanda cannot handle alone. If we are to survive, we must pool our knowledge and resources with trusted allies in the outside world.”
M'Kathu—elder of the Border Tribe, his face covered in scarred bumps that mimicked the skin of a crocodile—shook his head and scoffed. “‘Trusted’ allies like a former arms dealer and the remnants of an American spy agency.”
“Tony Stark risked his life alongside my sister and I, as did all of the Avengers,” T’Challa reminded them. “He has seen the errors of his past and dedicated his life to protecting the world. Beyond this, he is a truly brilliant man, and the only one I have ever seen meet my sister on an even footing. We will gain much from working with him.”
“And what’s to stop the Avengers from turning over our secrets to the US Government and other nations? Revealing us to the world?”
“Nothing,” T’Challa responded simply. “But if that was going to happen, it is too late to stop it in any case. The Avengers already have much knowledge of our country and our technology. If they wished to betray us, they could simply do so now.”
“That is not terribly convincing or reassuring,” Zawavari, elder of the Mining Tribe, said, shooting him a wry look as she smoothed out her intricately-patterned blue dress.
“Tony Stark has firmly and repeatedly rejected the efforts of the US Government to obtain his own technology. The Avengers stand to gain many more benefits from holding our trust than they would in outing us to the world. It would be senseless. There are risks involved in this partnership with the Avengers, but they are far outweighed by the potential benefits to our people.”
“Benefits that include access to Dr Bruce Banner,” M'Kathu pointed out. “Your concerns about your sister’s condition are shared by us all, but that does not mean we should risk—”
T’Challa cut him off sharply, a small spike of anger in his tone. “My sister’s condition is none of this Council’s concern.” He paused and sighed loudly, shaking his head as he looked around at the gathered elders. “It is time we consider opening ourselves more to the world. Finally coming out of the shadows. We gain nothing from burying our heads in the sand and continuing on as we always have. Now, more than ever, illusions of division threaten our very existence. In times of crisis, the wise build bridges, while the foolish cower behind barriers.”
The Border Tribe elder scowled at him. “Mind your words. You are not king yet. Wakanda’s barriers have protected our people for thousands of years.”
“And yet, what my son says rings true to my ears,” said King T’Chaka, raising a hand to silence the other man. “I have already heard your protests and concerns. This is not my son’s decision—it is mine. Vibranium was stolen from us and used to create terrible weapons. Without the Avengers and their allies, Wakanda would have been overcome.”
T’Challa nodded firmly at his father, raising his voice slightly as he addressed the Tribal Council once again. “We can no longer stand with our backs to the rest of the world, lest we find a dagger in it. We must instead face forward, a hand extended in peace. We all know the truth—there is more that connects the people of this world than separates us. We must find a way forward, together, as if we were one single tribe.”
“And what of the Red Woman?” Zawavari asked mildly. She moved her foot, gently prodding at the claw-like gouges that Wanda Maximoff had carved into the raw stone of the floor between them with the toe of her shoe.
The scars in the rock had since been filled in with silver-black vibranium, textured to look almost molten. T’Challa wasn’t completely sure why his father had chosen to memorialise the Red Woman’s visit in such a way, rather than to erase the marks. Then again, they did look vaguely like the marks left by a panther’s paws, and Wanda—much to T’Challa’s ongoing frustration—still held the blessing of the goddess.
“The Red Woman is no longer our concern,” T’Challa said firmly, trying not to think about the last conversation he had had with Shuri about the woman. There had been shouting. “The king has rendered his judgement.”
“If there is nothing further,” the king added, quickly interceding to cut off whatever comments the elders were about to unleash. “I believe my son has a plane to catch.” T’Challa’s father smiled at him and nodded, dismissing him.
T’Challa bowed his head deeply. “Thank you, baba. I will report back to the Council upon my return.”
With that, he turned and left—the Border Tribesmen standing at attention at the entrance to the throne room opening the doors for him before he turned and headed down the hallway leading to the Royal Talon’s landing pad.
Less than fifteen minutes later, he had touched down on one of the landing zones flanking the main building at the Great Mound facility and headed inside. Catching the elevator down to Shuri’s personal lab, he emerged to find her carefully going over the contents of a hovering trolley laden high with metal crates, checking it against some sort of checklist or other inventory projected on a holographic display above her wrist. The trolley was one of five—vibranium and other supplies that Shuri intended on taking with her to the Avengers compound. His sister was so focused on her task that she did not immediately react to T’Challa’s presence, her lips forming the outlines of words as she spoke to herself quietly under her breath, her face a mask of concentration.
“Women always pack too much,” T’Challa joked, to catch her attention. “I am not sure there is enough room in the Royal Talon for all of this.”
“This is not a holiday, brother. Everything here is necessary,” Shuri said tightly—a bare instant later, her shoulders relaxed and she shot him a slightly apologetic smile. She crossed her arms over her chest and he mimicked her, both of them lightly tapping their chests with closed fists. “I’m nervous,” she confessed.
“I would be amazed if you were not,” T’Challa said with a sympathetic smile. “This will be your first time away from Wakanda.”
“It’s not that,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. “I’m just… I don’t know. It will be interesting to work with Tony Stark and Dr Banner again.”
“Is my little sister afraid that she cannot keep up with the big, smart, American men without the full resources of the Great Mound at her fingertips and dozens of staff at her every beck and call?” he teased.
Shuri’s eyes blazed as she rounded on him. “Careful, brother. It is not wise to make me angry, these days. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
T’Challa grinned, holding up his hands in a silent apology. Though Shuri hadn’t directly admitted it, he knew that she had really enjoyed working with the Avengers despite the circumstances of their meeting. While his sister was obviously already used to working with others, she was also used to being the smartest person in the room by a significant margin, and with Tony Stark that position was no longer certain. The man had managed to push and challenge her in new ways, forcing her out of complacent habits and to evaluate things from angles she hadn’t considered before. T’Challa was certain that this little temporary residency would be nothing but good for her.
His sister reached over, shoving his chest playfully, then gestured at the assorted materials in front of her. “Give me a hand with all of this,” she ordered.
Nearly three hours later, the Royal Talon was sitting on a small landing pad outside the main hanger of the Avengers compound in upstate New York, a pair of Dora Milaje unloading the overstuffed cargo compartment. A stocky, broad-shouldered man with short, dark hair, wearing a suit and tie—Happy, Stark had called him—was trying to lend them some assistance and being amusingly stymied at every turn.
“Looks like you brought half the Great Mound with you,” Stark said to Shuri, grinning lightly. “That’s a lot of vibranium.”
“I’ve brought some gifts for the team—the prosthetics we talked about, among other things,” she said with a nod, pausing before shooting him a mildly smug smile. “Also, after your ancient, lumbering wreck of a suit gave out, I thought perhaps you might be interested in my ideas for some upgrades.”
“Christmas, huh?” Dr Banner said brightly, glancing toward his colleague.
Stark’s expression had turned thoughtful, wheels already turning in his head. “I am very interested in taking a deeper dive into your nanotech. I may have some ideas myself.”
“I suppose I can humour an old man,” Shuri said with a sniff.
“A couple of old men,” Dr Banner replied with an easy smile. “The facilities here aren’t going to be quite what you’re used to, I’m afraid—we’re still not quite done installing everything in the labs. Getting there, though.”
“I’m sure it will do for now. I’ll probably have to do some redecorating anyway—American design sensibilities leave much to be desired. How am I supposed to think properly in such a bland environment?” A moment after she’d spoken, Shuri’s whole body tensed up, her expression turning wooden, and she almost immediately turned and walked back over to where her belongings were being unloaded.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Shuri? What—” T’Challa stopped as he noticed that Pietro Maximoff had just stepped out of the nearby main entrance to the hangar.
The younger man stopped, hesitating for a moment, then walked over, closing the distance between them. Dr Banner and Stark exchanged an uncomfortable look, but neither of them said anything. “Hi, um, Prince T’Challa,” Pietro said, touching his chest and giving an embarrassed sort of half-bow.
T’Challa held up a hand. “We don’t do that.”
“Uh, sure. Okay.”
There was an excruciatingly awkward silence for a moment before Shuri returned, hefting an almost-comically large bag over one shoulder. “Where will I be staying?” she asked Stark stiffly, completely ignoring the Maximoff’s presence. “There are a few things I want to drop off in my room.”
Stark nodded and held up a hand to catch the attention of his man, Happy, who came hurrying over. He gestured toward the compound’s central building, an asymmetrically-shaped structure with the Avengers’ logo emblazoned on the side. “Happy can show you to your new room—your quarters. We’ll give you the big, proper tour a little later on. Who’ve we got her between? She’s next to Clint, right?”
Happy nodded. “Yeah, at the end, next to Clint.”
“Careful, he snores,” Stark warned Shuri with a bit of forced joviality. “I mean, the walls are soundproofed, but that man really snores.”
T’Challa watched as the stocky man gestured for Shuri to follow him before the two of them headed off toward her new quarters, waiting a few seconds before turning back to Pietro. “She is fine,” he said quietly. “Just give her some time.”
“Yeah, okay. I might just… um,” Pietro said, awkwardly gesturing away from them. “Good to see you again, Prince T’Challa.”
The Wakandan prince exhaled softly through his nose, but gave a small nod. “Likewise. As I said, do not mind Shuri. She is just… nervous about being here.”
Pietro returned his nod, then turned and left as well.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Stark said to T’Challa, stepping up beside him. “We’ll look after Shuri. You’re leaving her in good hands.”
T’Challa let out a small chuckle as he turned back to face the other man. “I am not worried about Shuri. She can look after herself.” He looked between Stark and Dr Banner. “If there is anything more we can give you that might help with analysing her condition…”
Dr Banner shrugged, a slightly awkward expression on his face. “We’ll keep you in the loop, but we still don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with here.”
Next to him, Stark nodded. “This is the best place for her right now. We’ll need time to monitor her so we can pick apart how your Herb thing interacted with the gamma radiation to make her, y’know, Hulk out. Make sure it’s safe. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen someone affected by Banner’s blood, but at least this particular case does seem to be pretty stable.”
“You refer to the Abomination.” T’Challa’s own expression turned pensive, thinking back to the illusion of Emil Blonsky that Eliza had tricked them with during her attack on the Great Mound.
“Shuri seems fine, though!” Bruce interjected hurriedly. “I think if she was going to mutate like that she would have already. Wanda said a while ago that she saw a ‘She-Hulk’ in her visions, too, and she did okay… though that was my cousin, not your sister.”
“I see,” T’Challa said, looking pensive. “I am glad of your decision to not allow Wanda Maximoff to formally join the Avengers. Her brother is one thing, but I am not sure that Shuri could have been convinced to stay if she would have had to see Wanda every day.”
Tony grimaced a little. “Little Miss Magic does still visit pretty frequently. We’re still working together.”
“Even so, the extra level of separation helps.”
T’Challa was actually hoping that the semi-regular contact with Wanda and Pietro would help Shuri to get over the worst of her feelings toward them. Call it exposure therapy, almost. T’Challa himself still did not completely trust the Red Woman—she had poor judgement, poorer impulse control and far too much raw power at her disposal for that to make her anything but dangerous—but she seemed to at least be trying to do the right thing.
Wanda had known the truth about his cousin and warned them of it, but Eliza’s accidental creation had proven that she didn’t know everything. It would also not surprise him if there was still information that Wanda was deliberately concealing from the Avengers, picking and choosing what to share from what she’d supposedly seen to deliberately cast herself in a better light.
Stark nodded and there was another awkward pause. After a few seconds, he clapped his hands together. “Well, how about we show you around a bit?”
--
I’d been a little surprised at how big the upstate Avengers compound was, but I honestly had just never really realised how many support staff they had. There were a whole bunch of people working here under the careful eye of Maria Hill—intel officers, sure, but also engineers to service the Quinjets and other bits of equipment that Tony didn’t need to handle personally, a whole call centre and public relations division, and a small contingent of workers who maintained the extensive grounds, among others. They generally remained in the outer structures, with only cleaners and similar staff having reason to enter the main central building where the Avengers were quartered. There were also some areas of the compound still being refurbished—obviously, the Avengers had had to move in here a little earlier than in the original timeline, so it wasn’t a hundred per cent ready.
The first parking lot off the road leading into the compound was publicly-accessible, next to a security and media centre blocking the entrance to the rest of the grounds, and today it was packed. I didn’t need to worry about parking, of course—it was nearly a two-hour drive from Natasha’s apartment in the city out to the compound, a timesaving I definitely considered portal-worthy. I arrived in the gardens and snuck in from the back of the building, instead. It was a hive of activity, public relations and security staff everywhere, and I wandered for a minute trying to work out where everyone was before I was intercepted.
“You know,” said Happy Hogan, Tony’s head of security and general gofer. He shot me a tight smile, but there was a little bit of resentment in his tone. “You could still just come in through the front door, like a normal person. We’ve got a lot of people in today and it’d make it a lot easier on security.”
“Whatever,” I responded, rolling my eyes. “You all know who I am.”
I let him usher me through to where a few of the Avengers were waiting for the start of the press conference. Tony was near the set of double doors leading to the press room proper, talking to Pepper, absorbed in something that she was showing him on a tablet. Once I was inside, Happy shot me a look and hurried over to his boss, leaving me to my own devices.
On the other side of the room, Clint and Bucky stood talking quietly to Natasha. Nat perked up a little when she saw me, so I headed over to them, nudging her with my shoulder as I arrived. “Hey!”
“Hey.” She grinned and nudged me back.
“Clint! Bucky!” I beamed at the two men, taking in their new matching cybernetic arms, banded silver-black vibranium inlaid with intricate, geometric-patterned golden accents. I knew that Shuri was staying at the compound for a little while—what a surprise that had been to hear! I hadn’t seen her yet, but that was mostly on purpose; Pietro had told me it was pretty awkward already, and I thought it was better to give the teen a wide berth for now. At least until she’d had time to settle in properly. “Looking sharp! You know you two have to be best friends now, yeah? That’s how this works, right?” I said, gesturing between the two of them.
Bucky shook his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and Clint chuckled. “Good to see you, too, Wanda.”
I paused, my own expression faltering a little. “How’re you doing with… everything?” I asked sympathetically.
He shrugged, raising his metal arm and flexing the fingers. “It’s weird. It’ll take some getting used to, but it’s not as hard as I thought it’d be.”
I scrunched up my face, tilting my head a little as I glanced between his arm and Bucky’s. “Is it crass to say that I’m sort of glad that it wasn’t your left arm? I mean, it’d probably be easier if you had interchangeable parts, but I do like that the two of you have sort of a mirror thing going on, now,” I said.
Natasha elbowed me, but Clint let out a small snort of amusement. “Yeah. I’m left-handed; it would have been even more of a pain to lose the other one.”
Bucky straightened up, looking past me and lifting his chin in a small gesture. “Man of the hour’s here,” he said.
I spun around to see Pietro and Steve coming down a set of stairs toward us. My brother was wearing what could only be his new ‘official’ Avengers outfit; a cross between a superhero costume and high-performance athletics gear—grey, silver and dark blue stretch fabric that flatteringly hugged and outlined his figure, with a stylised lightning bolt slashing across the chest from shoulder to hip and small armoured accents.
I wondered if he was a little uncomfortable being the only one ‘in uniform’, so to speak, but I understood why they’d done it like this. Everyone else was dressed in fairly plain smart casual attire, which meant that eyes would naturally be drawn to Pietro—this was his big debut, after all.
I rushed over and slammed into him, wrapping my arms around him in a tight hug. “Pietro! You look so good!”
He hugged me back, shaking his head and chuckling slightly before extricating himself. “Thanks.” I could hear an edge of nerves in his tone.
Next to us, Steve grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “You ready?” he asked.
“Not really,” Pietro admitted.
“Don’t stress,” I said, looking him over and picking off the tiniest bit of fluff that had gotten stuck to the fabric hugging his collarbone. “You just need to smile and look pretty and say something like ‘I’m looking forward to being part of the team’.”
“I’ve been coaching him,” said Steve, nodding. “He’ll do fine.”
Of course, that made sense. Out of everyone here, Steve was the one with the most personal experience at being uncomfortably paraded around like a show pony. There was a burst of hubbub behind me and I turned back toward the doors to the press room—it looked like they’d opened briefly to let Pepper and Happy through, with Tony now beelining toward the three of us.
We met him halfway. He shot me a tight smile before turning to Pietro with a serious expression, thrusting his thumb in the direction of the press room. “Alright, Happy Feet. There’re about fifty reporters through those doors—real ones, not bloggers. Let’s go introduce the world to the newest official member of the Avengers.”
Pietro nodded and we continued forward, Nat, Bucky and Clint moving to link up with us. Bruce had appeared from somewhere as well, the full team now assembled and ready to head out.
A woman wearing a headset and holding a clipboard tight against her chest was standing next to the doors as we approached—she muttered something into her mic, then her face lit up in a welcoming smile as we arrived. “Ms Potts is speaking now; we’ll send you in in a moment.” She glanced in my direction, singling me out. “Ms Maximoff, you’ll need to hang back. I’ll let you know when you can go in.”
My smile faded a little, but I nodded in acknowledgement. It made sense that I had to wait—I wasn’t an Avenger, I couldn’t walk in as part of the group—but it still stung slightly. I didn’t want to be jealous, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a huge part of me really wanted to be stepping out there right alongside Pietro.
After a little bit, the woman nodded and gestured for the team to enter. As the Avengers pushed the double doors open and filed through, there was another burst of indistinct hubbub from the crowd; I craned my neck to look past, catching a glimpse of the gathered reporters and camera crews before the doors shut again, leaving me standing alone with the media staffer.
She shot me a tight smile and held up a finger, tilting her head to the side as she listened to what was happening in the other room through her headset. A half-dozen seconds crawled agonisingly by before she dropped her hand and nodded, gesturing to the door. “Keep to the left, against the wall. Mr Hogan will be there.”
I nodded my thanks, then took a deep breath and pushed through the doors.