Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  Wakanda

  –Jack Sullivan–

  The st time he was here, he was never really given the ce to explore muot 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 poun 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 evetle princess were waiting for him with smiles on their faces as he alighted from the Raptor. He passed a row of Dora Mije 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 e 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 esoteriature of that energy and I am not sure if even Vibranium could e out unscathed from being in the tre 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 teology or just a fun of your powers?”

  “How do they work, anyway? You should not be able to gee more energy than a small nuclear power pnt just by eating normal food. Be ho, do you eat nuclear fuel to sustain all your powers? Also–”

  He smiled as the very excited Shuri ulled back by Ramonda, a mighty frown on her face as she stopped Shuri from bbbing the world away.

  “Shuri, treat our royal guest with respect. Besides, he is actually here in an emergency. You bother him ter o is not something that stitutes an emergency,” Ramonda chided her as she him.

  His eyes fshed in surprise as he returhe 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 tact. She was a member of the eion and also the one who didn’t have the experiehat 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 Mije 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 bee the awesome sassy teenager she would bee iure. She was just an overexcited, extremely intelligent, adolest with a wealth of energy and all the resources the try had at her disposal. It was natural that she would reach great heights, eveer than Tony Stark should she properly apply those talents.

  “Mr.Sullivan, I must fess, our st versation opened up my eyes regardiain truths that I had been turning a blio. I realised then that it was my stupidity to do so and I did not want my mistakes to e back ter, haunting T’Chal. In that regard, I have taken multiple steps that I am sure will shock you. But for now, let’s greet the cil,” T’Chaka said as the door to the throne room ened.

  He entered with T’Chaka, almost missing a step as he saw the people that were sitting on the cil seats. If he was n, each of the seats represented a tribe of Wakanda, with the Jabari tribe being granted a seat on the cil only when T’Chal became King and obtaiheir support.

  The st time he came here, the 4 seats were filled with very old people, as ropriate as they were probably the leaders of their tribes, having made their way through experience. What he was seeing right now was pletely different.

  The oldest guy in the cil could not be over 50 at all, whereas the older fossils looked as if they would drop dead sometime in the year or so. This was a drastic ge. As far as his knowledge went, even when Ramonda became Queen, the cil members of Wakanda stayed the same. Even as the Monarchy ged its leadership three times, the cil members stayed the same in its ey.

  A, he could see entirely new faces oire cil.

  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 ge to occur.

  Even so, now was not the time for that.

  “Ahem, I actually wao 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.

  “Ihe Mohrives in the dying corpse of SHIELD, once a fine anisation, now just a front for an old evil,” One of the cil members said.

  He had no idea how them since all of them looked the same, and you know, normal as opposed to the old cil members who all had distinct identifying traits, like the dy with the rings for a neck.

  “Well, yes but that is about to e to a spectacur end sometime in the 24 or so hours. I am sure that you will know wheime es.”

  “Do you need any aid from our side? T’Chal is on his way bae. 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’Chal would jump at the ce to do so,” T’Chaka interjected.

  His eyebrows rose in mild shock. So T’Chaka was willing to involve the illustrious Bck Panther in the mix for this. And what was that about them deteg his ship? Well, time to deflect that piece of information for as long as he could. He did not want ao know about his trip to space, for reasons he was yet to uand pletely.

  He gave T’Chaka a deep look as he said, “You really have ged. 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 ti are propped up by Westeries so that they get resources and bour for the cheap, essentially free.

  T’Chaka the information, prompting him to go on.

  “Well, I guarahat a signifit pertage 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 uhem occupying those resources, I would be grateful. Plus, this would also give you the ce 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 uhe warlords and supp the ones who would lead their people to safety. T’Chal will be thrilled at the opportunity,”

  “Okoye, make the appropriate preparations for T’Chal’s arrival. I am sure you people will be having a very busy day,”

  “Yes, My King,”

  “Anything else, Mr.Sullivan?” T’Chaka then turo him. He snapped out of his daze and shook his head.

  “Now that was quick. I will be gd to have an opportunity ter on, once everythiles down, to really see what T’Chal 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 i’Chaka’s stern, stubborn, mildly racist, and arrogant image was crumbling in front of his eyes as he spoke so calmly and openly with someoh 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 tact me on this by the way, if the need arises,” He said and handed over a piece of paper to the Dora Mije. She looked kind of cute, in a battle hardened I-will-snap-your-neck-wihout-a kind of way.

  “Uh yeah, I have a patient. Someoh mental brainwashing that o be undone in a safe enviro. The patient is roughly also on the same level as Steve Rogers so if you help with that, I will be incredibly grateful.,”

  “We certainly have a leg up over the wider world when it es to mental illnesses but even we have not gotten close t them. Still, we will do what we . When will the patient e 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 ged 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 cilmen’s faces, they didn’t think much of it.

  He then turned around ahe throne room. He looked to see one of the Dora Mije scrambling towards him.

  “My King told us that you use your portal for emergencies,”

  Oh. Well, he was just trying to be polite this time and showing that you could enter a 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 happeo him, right into a rifle poiraight at him.

  He paused upon seeing Maria Hill (Robin Sparkles! Get it?) l the rifle that oi 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 unfortable bed.

  “Hey! It was not my fault. I just saw this room on my way out and I o have seen the area where I o 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 aire try 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 colpse,” Maria bemoaned her fate as she fell asleep on the bed.

  “The carriers are supposed to un 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 b 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 t freaking Barton was leaning on the wall opposite him, mung on an apple.

  “Heya, kid! Gd to have you back,” t smiled at him, spped him on the shoulder, a.

  “Have the Avengers all gathered for this?” He asked as he walked behind t. He also spread his spying barriers all over the exterior of the base, just in case this location was promised as well. As much as he trusted t’s superspy skills, the more people came in and out of a pce, 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 plicated, what with Jarvis leaving him,” t said as they entered a living area of sorts, a temporary ohat was created with lots of food and fruits oable 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 ba the sofa, making himself fortable for the versation that was about to happen. And he k 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 decred 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 o eat as well, and judging by the ck of dimensional energy source that other enhanced people have, Steve must gh a ton of food on the daily.

  Lucky Bastard. Getting to eat a ton of calories without having to worry about burning them off ter 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 tact as he bit on the banana.

  Steve cleared his throat as he asked the question that all three of them must want the ao, “We, uh, we just wao 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 e from?” Romanoff interjected as well.

  “Yeah, what she said,” t said, an amused glint in his eye.

  He khere 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. fortable sofas? Check. Food? Check.

  Someone who will be telling them iing stories? Check.

  Goddamit, this was a cssic pajama party, you know, just with people with a kill t ihousands, so not a cssic slumber party, then?

  “Fine, if you must know….”

  Word t - 2684

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