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Wakanda
–Jack Sullivan–
The last time he was here, he was never really given the chance to explore much. Not that he had much time this time as well but the difference would be clear even to a blind person. They were much more courteous this time, treating him like an actual guest instead of some vicious intruder who could pounce on them at any given moment.
This time though? They were out in full force, at least as much as they could given the small preparation window they had. The King, Queen, and even the little princess were waiting for him with smiles on their faces as he alighted from the Raptor. He passed a row of Dora Milaje as he approached King T’Chaka.
This time, he chose to give some respect to T’Chaka since he had actually received treatment worthy of another human. So, he nodded minutely at King T’Chaka,
“King T’Chaka, I come with urgent information,” He said but before he could say further, the small form of Shuri blurred in front of him, excitedly babbling away question after question.
“Oymygosh! It’s actually you!”
“How did you survive that energy storm? Our sensors indicated the esoteric nature of that energy and I am not sure if even Vibranium could come out unscathed from being in the centre of it.”
“Where were you for the past two years?”
“*GASP* Were you in some sort of medical stasis for the past two years, your injuries taking that much time to heal properly? If so, was it induced by technology or just a function of your powers?”
“How do they work, anyway? You should not be able to generate more energy than a small nuclear power plant just by eating normal food. Be honest, do you eat nuclear fuel to sustain all your powers? Also–”
He smiled as the very excited Shuri was pulled back by Ramonda, a mighty frown on her face as she stopped Shuri from blabbing the world away.
“Shuri, treat our royal guest with respect. Besides, he is actually here in an emergency. You can bother him later on when it is not something that constitutes an emergency,” Ramonda chided her as she nodded at him.
His eyes flashed in surprise as he returned the gesture. Out of the entire current Royal family, he was of the opinion that Ramonda was the one who was the most averse to outside contact. She was a member of the older generation and also the one who didn’t have the experience that T’Chaka did. Well, if things were different or not, only time would tell.
“This way then, Mr.Sullivan,” T’Chaka said as he gestured to a lit up pathway. He walked side by side with the King, with the Dora Milaje following behind, Shuri and Ramonda having taken their own ways. He had a hunch that Shuri’s etiquette lessons were just about to get a lot more mandatory than they were before.
She was yet to become the awesome sassy teenager she would become in the future. She was just an overexcited, extremely intelligent, adolescent with a wealth of energy and all the resources the country had at her disposal. It was natural that she would reach great heights, even greater than Tony Stark should she properly apply those talents.
“Mr.Sullivan, I must confess, our last conversation opened up my eyes regarding certain truths that I had been turning a blind eye to. I realised then that it was my stupidity to do so and I did not want my mistakes to come back later, haunting T’Challa. In that regard, I have taken multiple steps that I am sure will shock you. But for now, let’s greet the council,” T’Chaka said as the door to the throne room was opened.
He entered with T’Chaka, almost missing a step as he saw the people that were sitting on the Council seats. If he was not wrong, each of the seats represented a tribe of Wakanda, with the Jabari tribe being granted a seat on the council only when T’Challa became King and obtained their support.
The last time he came here, the 4 seats were filled with very old people, as was appropriate as they were probably the leaders of their tribes, having made their way through experience. What he was seeing right now was completely different.
The oldest guy in the council could not be over 50 at all, whereas the older fossils looked as if they would drop dead sometime in the next year or so. This was a drastic change. As far as his knowledge went, even when Ramonda became Queen, the council members of Wakanda stayed the same. Even as the Monarchy changed its leadership three times, the council members stayed the same in its entirety.
And yet, he could see entirely new faces on the entire council.
His eyes met T’Chaka’s as he realised that T’Chaka’s words probably held some truth in them. Something drastic must have happened for such a change to occur.
Even so, now was not the time for that.
“Ahem, I actually wanted to talk to you about HYDRA. I assume you are already aware of them?” He cleared his throat to draw everyone’s attention, not that everybody was not already paying close attention to his every move.
“Indeed, the Monster thrives in the dying corpse of SHIELD, once a fine organisation, now just a front for an old evil,” One of the council members said.
He had no idea how to recognise them since all of them looked the same, and you know, normal as opposed to the old council members who all had distinct identifying traits, like the lady with the rings for a neck.
“Well, yes but that is about to come to a spectacular end sometime in the next 24 or so hours. I am sure that you will know when the time comes.”
“Do you need any aid from our side? T’Challa is on his way back home. Oh yeah, he told me to inform you about some unknown bogey that has entered Earth and has disappeared somewhere around the coast of New York. If you need any help, just say the word and I am sure that T’Challa would jump at the chance to do so,” T’Chaka interjected.
His eyebrows rose in mild shock. So T’Chaka was willing to involve the illustrious Black Panther in the mix for this. And what was that about them detecting his ship? Well, time to deflect that piece of information for as long as he could. He did not want anyone to know about his trip to space, for reasons he was yet to understand completely.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
He gave T’Chaka a deep look as he said, “You really have changed. And no, I don’t need aid to deal with HYDRA. I am enough on my own. What I came here to do is give you a heads up. As I am sure that you know most of the warlords on the continent are propped up by Western entities so that they can get resources and labour for the cheap, essentially free.
T’Chaka nodded at the information, prompting him to go on.
“Well, I can guarantee that a significant percentage of them are supported by HYDRA through its various subsidiaries. After tomorrow, there will be no HYDRA to speak of. We are going to destroy them and spread the ashes so that nothing will be left of them. So, if you could do something about those warlords and the people under them occupying those resources, I would be grateful. Plus, this would also give you the chance to—”
“TO create a base for a unified Africa?” T’Chaka sounded bemused as he interrupted him.
“It would seem Mr.Sullivan that my son’s thought processes matches with yours a lot more than I think they did. My Son had the same idea when he first began liberating the people suffering under the warlords and supporting the ones who would lead their people to safety. T’Challa will be thrilled at the opportunity,”
“Okoye, make the appropriate preparations for T’Challa’s arrival. I am sure you people will be having a very busy day,”
“Yes, My King,”
“Anything else, Mr.Sullivan?” T’Chaka then turned to him. He snapped out of his daze and shook his head.
“Now that was quick. I will be glad to have an opportunity later on, once everything settles down, to really see what T’Challa has done, of course, with your permission.”
“I don’t think people in your line of work ever get the opportunity to see things settle down, Mr.Sullivan,”
What the Fuck!! He was freaking out over the inside. T’Chaka’s stern, stubborn, mildly racist, and arrogant image was crumbling in front of his eyes as he spoke so calmly and openly with someone with the wrong skin colour, in their eyes anyway.
“Anyway….I have stuff to do, HYDRA to take down so I’ll leave for now. You can contact me on this by the way, if the need arises,” He said and handed over a piece of paper to the nearest Dora Milaje. She looked kind of cute, in a battle hardened I-will-snap-your-neck-wihout-any-regret kind of way.
“Uh yeah, I have a patient. Someone with mental brainwashing that needs to be undone in a safe environment. The patient is roughly also on the same level as Steve Rogers so if you can help with that, I will be incredibly grateful.,”
“We certainly have a leg up over the wider world when it comes to mental illnesses but even we have not gotten close to curing them. Still, we will do what we can. When will the patient come here?”
“A few days after HYDRA is taken care of?”
“Splendid. We will await you then,”
“Okay, then. I guess I will see you around then,” He internally cringed at the extremely casual delivery of that dialogue, to a Monarch of all people. Though judging by the still present smile on his and the councilmen’s faces, they didn’t think much of it.
He then turned around and left the throne room. He looked to see one of the Dora Milaje scrambling towards him.
“My King told us that you can use your portal for emergencies,”
Oh. Well, he was just trying to be polite this time and showing that you could enter and exit someone’s most secure spaces and would not be called polite in any sense of the word.
“Okay, then. Thank King T’Chaka for me,” He said as a portal opened in front of him, as he walked into it, distracted by just what had happened to him, right into a rifle pointed straight at him.
He paused upon seeing Maria Hill (Robin Sparkles! Get it?) lowering the rifle that was pointed at him.
“Quit doing that! Do you have any idea how stressful it was to see a random portal pop up in front of me?” Hill fumed as she stashed the rifle by her bed and sat on the clearly uncomfortable bed.
“Hey! It was not my fault. I just saw this room on my way out and I need to have seen the area where I need to open my portal,” He muttered to himself as he cast a calming spell in the room, one of the least effective variants of the spell that could actually be used to calm down an entire country if used by an appropriately skilled user.
“Huh, figures. I finally get some intel on the mysterious Green Guardian when SHIELD itself is about to collapse,” Maria bemoaned her fate as she fell asleep on the bed.
“The carriers are supposed to launch in 11 hours. Unlike you and Captain Rogers, I need rest so I will see you after I get some shut eye. Goodbye now,” Saying so, she turned around after pulling the blanket over herself.
He just stood there in mute shock for a moment, realising that this was the most he had seen Sparkles speak. Well, everyone was tightly wound as it was.
So, he turned around and slowly closed the door and found himself in front of…
“What the…” He muttered to himself as Clint freaking Barton was leaning on the wall opposite him, munching on an apple.
“Heya, kid! Glad to have you back,” Clint smiled at him, slapped him on the shoulder, and left.
“Have the Avengers all gathered for this?” He asked as he walked behind Clint. He also spread his spying barriers all over the exterior of the base, just in case this location was compromised as well. As much as he trusted Clint’s superspy skills, the more people came in and out of a place, the more likely it was to be discovered by enemy people.
“What? No. You think we will need Banner and Thor for HYDRA? That would be so overkill it wouldn’t even be funny. Plus, Thor’s offworld, and I would think that with you around, we wouldn’t need another person with signature green powers. Tony…well, his situation is complicated, what with Jarvis leaving him,” Clint said as they entered a living area of sorts, a temporary one that was created with lots of food and fruits on the table along with a TV running on the wall.
“Damn, didn’t know you guys started this party without me,” He said as he plopped himself on the crappy sofa and bit into the juicy apple as he leaned back on the sofa, making himself comfortable for the conversation that was about to happen. And he knew it was about to happen, one does not get a gathering like this and not have some fire tea/
“So, what’s up with Tony? How did he react with you being declared a fugitive? Is he going to show up tomorrow in a colossal suit of armour that could topple the carriers?” He asked them in fake cheer as Romanoff filtered into the room, with the sound of the steady beeping of medical equipment fading as the door to the room that probably housed Fury closed on its own.
“Whatchu boys talking about?”
“Well, I had a talk with Tony and have reassured him that the situation is manageable. He doesn’t know about HYDRA yet and with Jarvis around, we elected not to inform him about it.” Steve said as he munched on a banana as well. Well, super soldiers needed to eat as well, and judging by the lack of dimensional energy source that other enhanced people have, Steve must go through a ton of food on the daily.
Lucky Bastard. Getting to eat a ton of calories without having to worry about burning them off later on.
As he grumbled in his mind, he looked to see that all three of them had fallen weirdly silent at the exact same time and were somehow sitting together, right in front of him, looking straight at him.
“What?” he asked, aggressively maintaining eye contact as he bit on the banana.
Steve cleared his throat as he asked the question that all three of them must want the answer to, “We, uh, we just wanted to ask what happened? Where were you for the past two years?”
“Also, there is no record of you anywhere in any database. Where did you come from?” Romanoff interjected as well.
“Yeah, what she said,” Clint said, an amused glint in his eye.
He knew there was a reason he liked the archer, despite being arguably the weakest member of the Avengers.
“Well, it’s a long story and…” His voice trailed off as he realised the setup.
Snacks? Check. Comfortable sofas? Check. Food? Check.
Someone who will be telling them interesting stories? Check.
Goddamit, this was a classic pajama party, you know, just with people with a kill count in the thousands, so not a classic slumber party, then?
“Fine, if you must know….”
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Word Count - 2684
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