She hated everything.
The cavernous assembly chamber in the UN's New York headquarters rang like a gong; the echoes throbbed in Shuri's head. She stifled a groan and rubbed her temples. When Okoye, similarly jet-lagged and grumpy, cast her a glance, she shook her head minutely. General Okoye wasn't the only one watching her. She was easily the youngest person in the room by a margin of decades; dozens of pairs of eyes were no doubt watching her, to see if she'd mess up.
But damn, she just wanted to take a fucking nap.
Shuri hadn't slept much after the meeting over the ring. She'd taken the books to her lab and set to work, converting the books into holograms, because some of the damn things were from nineteen-fucking-fifty-four. First editions, annotated to hell and back. So fragile it felt like they were printed on moth wings. The Hobbit. All three Lord of the Rings books. The Silmarillion. The twelve volumes of The History of Middle Earth. Each one riddled with a script unlike anything in their databases - a combination of many, if Rocket's and Bruce's observations were to be believed.
And once she was done - several hours later - there was hardly time to sleep. On Wakanda's fastest jet, it would be an eight-hour flight across Africa and the Atlantic to the UN headquarters in New York City. She gave a passing farewell to Clint Barton, who had arrived just as she was about to leave, and boarded the jet with Okoye and Onyeka. Instead of sleeping in those eight hours - as best she could, with the crushing hands of inertia squeezing her rib cage and her skull until they felt fit to burst - she did what any kid her age would do if they had time to kill and a pit of panicked despair in their chest.
She watched Vine compilations. Eight hours' worth. Didn't sleep a single wink on the flight over. And now, she was severely regretting it.
Shuri reached out and skimmed her fingertip through the dust along the top of her plaque. WAKANDA, she knew the other side said, in perfectly inoffensive white Arial letters. Her brother used to sit here. He would sit ramrod straight in his chair, flanked by his bodyguards, hands folded on the table as he surveyed the room with a faintly raised eyebrow. Every inch the diplomat. She sighed, removed her hand from the plaque. She never imagined she'd be in her brother's place. Adamantly hoped against it, in fact.
Not for the first time, the Black Panther prototype around her neck felt like a noose.
She grimaced and seized her coffee - venti, iced, four espresso shots - resisting the urge to pry the lid off and just chug it like an American frat boy at a party. It was tempting. The Starbucks down the block was… halfway decent. Shuri settled for demurely sipping from it, choosing not to return the odd look she was getting from the British UN ambassador down the aisle. She was too tired for that - and a niggling foreboding sensation told her that she'd want to save her ire for someone who actually deserved it.
The door opened. There was a momentary lull in the dull roar, and then it surged back with more force than ever. Curious, Shuri looked up, right into the haggard eyes of Everett K. Ross.
Agent Ross's face was twisted in that peculiar way his face sometimes did - a glowering sniff, somewhere between "just smelled some rotting garbage" and "trying to glare an obstinate politician into submission," both of which were accurate and nearly synonymous in this environment. When he met Shuri's eyes, though, the rage-sniff momentarily faltered, replaced with abject shock. Shuri nearly winced. Her brother's death wasn't entirely international knowledge, then.
A buzzing cloud of reporters surrounded Agent Ross; he swatted them away and made a beeline for Shuri's seat. "Your Highness," he muttered, giving her a respectful nod.
One corner of Shuri's mouth tipped up. "Agent Ross," she said. "Fancy seeing you here."
"Yeah, CIA, you know how it goes," he muttered, his rage-sniff deepening into a full-on scowl. He saw Shuri's searching glance and shook his head. "Not mad at you. Just - damn it all. Sorry in advance."
"What -"
The reporters grew louder. Both Shuri and Agent Ross turned to the door, and Shuri just barely bit back a groan. The CIA agent still noticed, of course. "Yep. Sorry."
General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross was shouldering his way through the crowd of reporters. "We lost Haley in the Dusting," Everett muttered to her. "Ross has been Secretary of State for a few years now, apparently that's enough to qualify him for diplomacy." Shuri scoffed.
General Thunderbutt finally broke free from the crowd of reporters and threw himself into his chair, a rumpled mess of a man. He looked like he'd been to hell and back; Shuri would have preferred if he'd stayed there, to be honest. His meltdown over the Accords not being enforced - and his very public, very profane confession to court-martialing Col. James Rhodes for not turning in the Rogue Avengers - was televised internationally, and did nothing but make him look like a paranoid asshole. More than usual, anyway. The fool was still trumpeting the original version of the Accords - not the one that her brother, Tony Stark, and dozens of other legislators had sweated over for the past two years to make them better for everyone.
The general's bloodshot eyes scanned the room and fell on Shuri. She raised an eyebrow at him and turned away, pretending to engage Okoye in conversation. Her grip subtly shifted on her Starbucks cup, so her middle finger was plastered across the front, directly at Ross.
Okoye gave her a disapproving look. Shuri raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"We are here to tell the world about Thanos," Okoye muttered back, "not make bad press for ourselves."
"Come on, it's Ross. The General."
Okoye glanced to their left, along the row of tables. Her lip curled, and she looked away. Shuri suppressed a snicker.
The crowd of reporters was ushered into the observer seats by security; Everett Ross gave the room a once over and slipped into the seat next to Thunderbutt, his eyes landing pointedly on Shuri's half-extended middle finger. He winked subtly. Shuri lifted her cup to hide her grin, accidentally flipping off Argentina's representative, who was now staring at her in outright shock. She hastily fixed her hand, giving Mr. Moritán an apologetic grimace.
And suddenly, the emergency session began.
Suffice it to say that Shuri was lost within the first five seconds. Last time she'd been here was two years ago, when Wakanda first decided to reconnect with the outside world. Not much had changed. Same politics. Same doubting looks. Except that half the people in the room were new, some representing governments that had been completely destroyed by the Dusting. The world was changed. Shuri could feel it.
Thankfully, Wakanda - a.k.a. Shuri - didn't have to actually speak for a while. Everyone else was piecing together the timeline, which was woefully short: first the donut ships in New York and Scotland, and then the attack in Wakanda. Whole world gone to shit, in less than 24 hours. It felt like a bad sci-fi movie.
So Shuri just sat back and let it wash over her - she'd already been filled in on what happened in New York by Bruce, who'd seen it all. The aliens landed, fought with Iron Man, kidnapped an unknown person believed to be former neurosurgeon Stephen Strange, and zipped off with Iron Man and Spider-man in tow. Then, Scotland: two more aliens landed, and according to security footage, they were after Vision, only barely held off by Scarlet Witch, Captain America, Black Widow, and the Falcon. Basic.
When it was Shuri's turn to speak, though, everything ground to a halt.
The eyes of the world turned to stare at her. It was like being faced down by the entire Dora Milaje, spears shimmering, eyes cold and unyielding. Her bodyguards shifted closer, a silent comfort. Shuri awkwardly cleared her throat and angled her microphone towards her.
"Greetings," she said awkwardly. The words clung to her throat, and Shuri did her best to force them out without sounding like a seven-year-old in front of the entire United Nations and the army of journalists there. "I - My name is Shuri, and I am here on behalf of my brother, who was lost in the Dusting," she said. There were brief mutters of sympathy, some of disdain. It made something cold and hateful curl in her gut.
On the arm of her chair, Onyeka tapped out a message in code. You can do this, she said. Let them scorn. They cannot harm you.
Okoye's fingers drummed on her right. Do not yield.
Shuri sat up straight, unaware until that moment of the slight slouch in her shoulders. She blamed her mortification over her posture and her exhaustion for what she said next.
"So - after coming to the Avengers Compound, the Rogue Avengers decided to come to Wakanda to use our expertise in removing the stone from Vision's head."
SIlence. Secretary-General Guterres leaned forward, his lips nearly brushing the mic, and said, "Clarification, please - what stone are you referring to?"
Oh, shit.
There was murmuring among the representatives, and Shuri mentally kicked herself, panic running ice-cold down her spine. She'd just accidentally revealed the existence of the Mind Stone to the entire fucking world.
Okoye turned to her and whispered, not bothering to pretend she wasn't, "Say it."
Shuri stared.
"You might as well," she said softly, "because the stones are all off-planet now, and everyone who might object to you sharing is dead."
Everyone who might object is dead.
Well, if that wasn't an accurate, though slightly morbid, truth. Shuri had been briefed on all the stones by Bruce, when he had arrived. She knew little else other than what Bruce had told her, but it would have to do.
Shuri swallowed, and summoned the last remaining strength she had to speak. "As is understood by myself and Wakanda's allies," she said, "the stone in Vision's head was one of six singularities, created at the beginning of the universe. Each was contained in stones, granting their wielders control over six aspects of the universe: space, time, mind, soul, reality, or power."
Her leg was jimmying uncontrollably under the table. She did her best to make it stop. "Vision's stone was the Mind Stone, containing an artificial intelligence that far rivaled anything Earth was able to create. And the infamous Tesseract, used in both HYDRA weapons in World War II and in opening the portal in New York in 2012, was a fourth-dimensional container meant to harness the power of the Space Stone."
She studied herself briefly on the screens hanging at the front of the council chamber, looming over the entire assembly. "The stones," she said heavily, "have been pursued by an extraterrestrial who calls himself Thanos. He is… he is the closest thing to sheer evil that this world has ever had the misfortune of seeing. He laid siege to a ship full of Asgardian refugees - the last five hundred or so of their kind - and slaughtered them all. He beat up the Hulk so thoroughly that Bruce Banner could no longer summon him." There were whispers around her - Bruce Banner is alive? - and she could feel General Ross's glare boring into her. "Thanos wanted the stones. Uniting them would grant him unlimited power, and dominion over the forces of the entire universe."
Muttering. Shuri glanced around, seeing diplomats and representatives leaning close to each other, or writing notes, or simply turning to stare at her with a strange gleam in their eyes. This was why she regretted speaking of the stones. They were not meant for mortal men to grasp. They brought nothing but ruin.
It wasn't until the muttering in the hall grew stronger that Shuri realized she'd said that out loud. "The stones," she said again, "are too powerful for anyone to use. Besides - it is pointless. Thanos took them with him when he left." She hesitated. "After killing off half of all life in the universe," she said.
"In the universe?"
General Thunderbutt's voice rang out over the crowd, somewhere between a shout and an undignified screech. The feedback from his microphone made everyone wince. "What do you mean, in the universe?" he repeated again. He was nearly standing up. Agent Ross looked like he was about to yank the General back into his seat. "I thought… hell, I thought the United Nations' official stance on extraterrestrial life was that the Asgardians are the only aliens," he scoffed, waving a hand, "out there. Are you on drugs?"
There was an offended uproar, but Shuri ignored it. "No," she said scathingly, right into her microphone. "I'm on my seat."
Some representatives laughed outright; others let out startled chuckles. Shuri smirked. The general walked right into that one. Thunderbutt's face turned a dangerous shade of red. "Why, you -"
"General Ross, Queen Shuri," Secretary-General Guterres said coolly. Thunderbutt finally allowed Agent Ross to elbow him back into his seat. "If you can't comport yourselves in a professional manner, I will have you escorted out."
"My apologies," Shuri said, stifling a grin. Honestly, it was worth it. Slip a Vine quote into a UN assembly? Check that off her bucket list. The internet was going to flip its collective shit.
Then Guterres leaned over his podium. "Queen Shuri," he said. His voice echoed ponderously in the meeting chamber, and Shuri lifted her chin. She tried to ignore how the weight of her new title slammed into her chest - even if it was only a formality, not an official position. "Your country is the only one present that has had contact with the alien Thanos. Can what he has done be fixed? And can he be stopped?"
Guterres paused. "More importantly, can he be stopped with anything that your country may have?"
A glimmer of gold flashed through her mind.
Yes. He can.
But Shuri could not bring herself to say that - something told her that the Ring was not something to be discussed with these people. She could not tell them. She would not. Those vultures would find a reason to storm her country and try to take it - or at least batter down the Sanctum's doors, demanding they turned it over. Shuri had already messed up, telling them about the Stones.
The Ring must remain secret. It must remain safe.
"He has the six Infinity Stones," she said instead. "And he is currently in an unknown part of the universe, far beyond our reach. For now… it would take a miracle to stop him, on our own."
"And are we on our own?" Secretary-General Guterres demanded.
Silence. The world waited with bated breath for Shuri's response.
She sighed. "I honestly don't know."
They'd called for a lunch recess. Okoye and Onyeka immediately flanked her when Shuri rose to throw away her empty coffee cup. After briefly shaking hands with Agent Ross and very deliberately blowing off General Thunderbutt, she made a beeline for the bathroom and locked herself in a stall. A venti iced coffee did bad things to her bladder.
For a long while after she was finished, Shuri stared at her reflection in the back of the stainless steel door. Even through the distortion and the smudges, she could see the hollow gleam of her eyes. The nanosuit necklace reflected as well, lingering beneath the gleam of her eyes in a cheerless grin.
She took a breath. Held it.
"Your Highness?"
Onyeka's shadow appeared beneath the stall door. "Are you alright?" she said softly, in the Wakandan tongue.
Shuri did not answer for a while. "Yes," she replied, staring at a drain in the floor. "Yeah. What are we doing for lunch?"
Onyeka leaned against the stall. The main bathroom door swung open, then quickly shut without anyone coming in. Shuri smirked. "We can go back to Starbucks," her bodyguard suggested. "It's close. You seemed to enjoy the coffee."
"I did, yes."
Shuri left the stall and made for the sink, resolutely not looking at her reflection in the mirror. Onyeka was a silent yet reassuring presence at her shoulder. "Shuri," she said, softly.
Shuri turned.
"If you need to go home," Onyeka said, "do not hesitate to ask."
The thought of returning home made a knot of homesickness swell in her throat. Shuri ducked her head and soaped up her hands. The soap stank of plastic and air.
"They will understand if you do not return."
"It's not proper procedure," Shuri said tonelessly. That was what she remembered, anyway, from the crash course in international proceedings she'd received on her last visit, at her brother's side two years ago. There would be a two-hour lunch break, and then they'd be back in the assembly hall at three.
But her hands shook beneath the spray of water. Bast, she just wanted to go home.
A handful of minutes found her waiting sullenly in line at the Starbucks down the street from the UN headquarters. The place wasn't terrible; she'd had better coffee, but never at a place with such variety. Maybe when this whole mess calmed down, she would see if she could open one in the city. She and Okoye could be co-franchisees.
It was a thought, nothing more. But Shuri knew that, if she was trying to find hope for the future in a bastion of western capitalism, she was definitely out of it. She should have slept on the plane...
Before the what-if's and how-about's could swallow her completely, she turned her gaze to the people waiting in line ahead of her. There were only three: the Ukranian representative, who was already picking up her order, a security guard, and a man in a crisp suit. Okoye stood between Shuri and the man in the suit, but she wasn't going to order. Maybe. She was currently squinting at the menu, so perhaps she would. Shuri had just ordered what the person ahead of her did, to see if she liked it.
The security guard moved to pay for his order. Okoye seemed to have heard what he'd gotten, and was muttering his order under her breath. Shuri hid a smile.
Then the guard collapsed.
It was almost instant pandemonium. The barista vaulted over the counter, shouting something about CPR. The guard had fallen into the arms of the man behind him, who slowly eased him to the ground and knelt beside him, not caring if he wrinkled his suit. After a curt discussion with the man in the suit, the barista whipped out her phone and called for an ambulance.
The security guard began to twitch; unease curling in her gut, Shuri stepped forward to help. She was stopped by an abortive hand motion from Okoye. "What?" she hissed.
"They have it handled," Okoye muttered back, her eyes scanning the Starbucks. Shuri frowned at her and followed her gaze. It was Okoye's job to analyze surroundings, to suspect foul play - but this was clearly just a medical emergency.
Wasn't it?
An ambulance quickly pulled up outside, and paramedics streamed in. The security guard was going into full-on convulsions now; everyone gave the emergency team a wide berth as they struggled to get him on the gurney and out of the Starbucks. Shuri stared helplessly as the ambulance drove off, screaming against the New York City traffic.
Onyeka gently nudged her. "Do you still want to get coffee, or would you rather go somewhere else?" she said softly.
Shuri pursed her lips and turned away. "We're here," she said in an undertone. Okoye listened in, her eyes still sweeping over the cafe. "We might as well stay."
The man in the suit pushed himself to his feet, wiping dust off the knees of his crisp black suit. His eyes briefly met Shuri's, and he gave her an acknowledging nod. Shuri gave a cautious one back, taking him in. He seemed about her brother's age, with dark skin, a kind face, and what seemed like a perpetual wrinkle of worry between his brows. There was a strange elegance to him and the way he moved. Despite herself, Shuri was slightly intrigued - he seemed familiar, though she didn't know where she may have seen him. Perhaps in the section for the media… though, if he was really a reporter, he would have probably stopped her for an interview…
His hands dove into his pockets. There was a flash of gold. Shuri stared at where his hands vanished into his pockets, but when he pulled out his phone she glanced away sheepishly.
Strange music played - tinny, full of pounding bass and dramatic brass - spouting from one of the TVs bolted to the wall. Numbers counted down on a screen rife with sleek computer animations.
"This is an ABC News Special Report, with George Stephanopolous…"
A harried-looking man with greying hair appeared on the screen. There was an almost automatic hush when he began to speak. "We're coming to you live from New York with a special report from both NASA and Stark Industries-run sattelites - in the wake of yesterday's tragedy, a massive unidentified object has entered the atmosphere above Africa…"
Satellite images, with the Stark Industries logo stamped on the bottom right, flashed on the screen. "Oh, Bast," Shuri breathed, staring at the image: a massive disaster of a spaceship superimposed on Earth, clearly propelling itself towards Africa.
She'd bet her life that it was headed for Wakanda. Not again, she pleaded, grabbing Okoye's arm for support. Please, just… not again.
Eight hours ago:
Bruce woke to the thunder in his bones.
The air was charged, in the breath between lightning bolts, and rain-laced wind howled along the building's exterior. He blinked, slowly. The whole world was muffled and soft. Bruce did not realize why until another thunderclap made his teeth vibrate, without a burst of lightning to accompany it; in the night, he'd somehow turned to lie on his stomach, blankets rucked around his ears and his pillow over his head.
Bruce removed the pillow. A cool rush of night air struck him, and he closed his eyes, running his hands through his too-short hair. It had easily been eight or nine hours - but his body still screamed from exhaustion.
Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled. He cringed and dropped his head onto the pillow.
It took a while to coax his stiff body out of the bed, into the morose blue gloom of his room in Birnin Zana. He had fallen asleep in yesterday's filthy clothes; the stale stench of the battle clung to his skin. A cursory glance into his suite's closet revealed some loose pants and nondescript shirts. Bruce grabbed some without really seeing them and went straight for the shower.
This, at least, was familiar. He refused to turn on the lights; only the flashes of lightning through the skylights gave him light to see. Under the tumbling water, amidst the crashing thunder and spears of lightning, it felt as if he was in the fury of the storm outside.
With the Hulk silent, he could finally stand in the midst of a thunderstorm without thinking of gunfire - of cannons, and tanks, and fear.
It felt wrong.
Five more minutes fumbling with Wakandan shampoo and soap, and Bruce found himself before the fogged bathroom mirror - nothing but a silhouette against shadows. He dressed in the dark and turned on the light. His reflection was wearing a baggy dark green shirt and oversized purple pants. Bruce groaned and leaned against the countertop, closing his eyes. The universe had to be fucking messing with him. He looked at himself one more time, at the shadows beneath his eyes, the lines of anger and weariness carved into him - and he figured, well, what else was new?
Thunder slammed above. Bruce saw his cheek twitch in a barely-suppressed flinch.
After unearthing a pair of soft-soled slippers from the closet - again, too big for him, and there had to be irony in there somewhere - he slipped to the door and peered into the lit hallway. It was completely silent, save for some snuffling from a room to Bruce's left. Thor's door across the hall stayed firmly shut. Bruce grimaced at it. No light gleamed from under the door. He wanted nothing more than to go in and apologize to Thor, yet again, just to hear it said again in the gloom of night, to give it permanence. But this was probably a shit time for apologies. Thor was asleep. Probably.
Bruce flinched from the next clap of thunder and moved down the hall.
He was inexplicably drawn to the room four doors down from his; the door was cracked open slightly, and a faint smell of burning plastic drifted through. He frowned and pushed it open.
"Oh, sorry," he said hastily.
On the floor, sitting next to the obviously-shot-up and still-smoking remains of a tablet, was Rocket. His massive gun lay somewhere near his feet. "Don't bother," the raccoon whispered.
Bruce, doing what he did best, decided to bother anyway. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
"You don't look okay."
"Guess not."
Rocket's curt voice allowed for no disagreement. Bruce shuffled into the room, taking in the scorch marks on the wall and what looked and smelled like spilled coffee on the bed. "If you need anything," he said awkwardly, "I - uh, I can help."
Lightning flashed, illuminating Rocket's pointed muzzle and glancing along the metal of his gun. "Offense meant, but I ain't in a desperate enough position to ask for help from a grown-ass man in pajamas."
"They're real clothes," Bruce said defensively, "they're just too big."
"Uh huh. You wanna help? You can do me a favor by leaving."
Bruce said, "No." Rocket eyes flashed at him. "I just…"
"Just wanna do something, huh?" The raccoon looked away, shuffling closer to the wall. "Don't we all. Just don't do it from pity, alright? Can't stand that shit."
"Neither can I," Bruce said, honestly.
They fell into a slightly less uncomfortable silence. Bruce wanted to sit down on the edge of the bed, but the sight of the spilled coffee made him change his mind. "I can give you my tablet, if you want," he offered. "I don't really need it."
Rocket cast a pensive look at his own tablet in the corner, instead of responding. "Maybe," he said slowly.
Bruce heard the tone of his voice and raised an eyebrow. Gears were turning in the raccoon's head. "What're you thinking of?"
"Nothing."
"If you're planning on building a bomb or something from the tablet, I kind of want to know -"
"Sheesh, why does everyone assume I'm building a bomb?" Rocket muttered, dragging himself to his feet. He moved stiffly. Bruce could relate. "I just got an idea, that's all. A communicator," he said curtly, before Bruce could ask what he meant. "I just wanna call my fucking friends and see if they're okay. Maybe they picked up your buddy Iron Guy and the wizard, and the spider kid. Who knows."
"And - and you know how to make one?" Bruce said.
"Well, I'd need more parts than this -" Rocket nudged the wrecked tablet with his foot. "- and I dunno where I'd find 'em -"
"A communicator," Bruce repeated, ignoring the look Rocket was giving him. He was still hung up on the idea; of course, after his time on Sakaar he knew those things were possible, space walkie-talkies that let beings across the galaxy talk to each other instantaneously - but building one on Earth? That seemed damn near impossible.
Unless Rocket really knew what he was doing. "I want to help," he said.
Rocket scoffed, "C'mon, humie, stay in your lane. Terra don't have nothing like what I can make -"
"I have seven PhD's," Bruce said, glaring.
"I don't know what that means."
"It means that I know what I'm doing. It - it sounds like you're trying to simulate a single-system set of quantum-entangled particles, except what binds the particles is -"
"Aghh, alright, alright!" Rocket snarled, clapping his paws over his ears. "I get it, you're a brainiac. Now shut the hell up, and let's do this."
Bruce beamed. Rocket bared his teeth.
They gathered up the smoking slag of Rocket's tablet in a pillowcase. Bruce went back to his room, his slippers making soft shushing sounds on the floor, and grabbed the Nalgene bottle he'd borrowed from the New York Sanctum. It was filled with what looked and smelled like iced coffee, gone rancid from heat and age. Bruce cringed and took it to the bathroom to rinse it out.
While he was waiting for the water to heat to scalding - hopefully it'd kill the bacteria - a soft buzzing came from the tablet on his nightstand. "Bruce Banner?" said a voice - definitely Wakandan.
"Yeah?" he shouted into the bedroom.
"Sorry to disturb you," the voice said, "but you were the only one of your companions who is currently awake."
"Don't worry about it - shit!" Bruce hissed, and dropped the water bottle into the sink with a hollow thunk. It had filled with boiling-hot water and overflowed onto his hands.
"You alright?"
"Yeah, just peachy." Bruce quickly dumped out the hot water, gave the bottle a cautious sniff, and switched to cold. "What's up?"
He winced a bit at the informality of his voice. The Wakandan spoke again - she sounded vaguely familiar. What was her name, Nayeli - no, Nakia. "Clint Barton has arrived."
Bruce dropped the bottle in the sink again. "Oh, great!" he said, trying to sound cheerful to mask the panic suddenly slamming in his chest. He had no idea what Clint thought of him, after two years; this would be a nerve-wracking meeting.
"He's waiting in Shuri's lab, if you want to go there," Nakia's voice said. A pause - then, "I heard your conversation with Rocket, by the way."
"Oh."
"Sorry, I did not mean to intrude. It was for security purposes."
"Right."
"You and Rocket can use the lab if you want," Nakia offered. "We give you permission, as long as you agree to stay away from Shuri's high-security experiments. And if you're fine with us observing."
Bruce gripped the water bottle tighter to keep himself from dropping it again. His brief sojourn in that lab had been the stuff of dreams. It was all he could do to keep himself for running straight there without another thought. "Thanks," was all he could choke out.
It sounded as if Nakia was struggling not to laugh. "No problem, Dr. Banner," she said. "Best of luck to you."
The tablet buzzed once, then fell silent. Bruce stared at the bottle, which was now overflowing again, and cursed.
When they got to the lab, Clint Barton was puttering around with a broom in one hand and a shiny travel coffee mug in the other. Temporary plasticine barriers had formed over the broken windows, but the floor was still littered with broken glass. Clint seemed to be fighting a losing battle against a handful of Wakandan Roombas, swatting them away from his careful pile of glass shards, and he looked absurdly like an Olympic curler.
He looked up only when the door hissed shut. A one-eyed golden Labrador Retriever lifted its head, and let out a soft boof. Clint gave the dog an admonishing look - the dog put its head back on its paws - and turned back to them. Bruce flinched when he saw the hollow look in Clint's eyes, just barely masked with a cold mirth. "Hey," he said quietly.
Clint must have seen something in Bruce's face, because he put the broom and coffee mug on Vision's operating table and came right over. "Don't give me that," the archer said, and hugged him. Bruce tensed in surprise. "C'mon, hug it out. You need it."
Bruce slowly returned the hug. "Thanks."
Clint patted him once on the back and let go, though his hands stayed on Bruce's shoulders. There was a bandage around his left hand. Bruce almost immediately missed the contact; Clint had always given great hugs. "You look like hell," Clint added, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"Been through it, too," Bruce said.
"Man, you gotta tell me about it sometime."
"Yeah, we'll have time for that - Rocket, no, don't touch that!"
Rocket had hopped onto a workbench and was slowly sifting through the cabinet above it. "Don't tell me what to do," he snapped. "You're not my mom."
"No, but you should leave it there," Bruce insisted. "It's rude."
"Look, I gotta get parts," Rocket said sharply, pulling out something circular and broken. "Ain't exactly a junkyard here. I gotta do what I gotta do."
"Rocket -"
"Hey, look," Clint said curtly. He crossed his arms. "The Wakandans let us in here out of the goodness of their hearts, alright? We can't take advantage of their shit without their permission?"
"Kid, taking advantage of people is what I do for a living."
"Been there, done that, it's not that cracked up. C'mon, they might kick us out, and then we're fucked."
"I ain't takin' advice from some fucker with a d'ast bow and arrow - c'mon, what kinda fucking clown do you think you are?" Bruce cringed.
Clint was unruffled. "They explode, too," he said. Rocket, despite himself, seemed vaguely interested. "And I have guns. Lots of them."
"That supposed to be a selling point?"
"It's the truth, is what it is, trash panda-!"
Rocket launched the hunk of metal at Clint, who caught it without looking at it. The dog barked. "Don't," Rocket snarled, "call me that. Ever. Again."
"Fine," Clint said. "Don't steal more of Queen Shuri's stuff, and we have a deal."
Rocket bared his teeth in a rabid snarl, but he hopped off the workbench into a spinning desk chair. "Fuck you," he spat out. The chair, propelled by his momentum, kept spinning. "Fuck you and the stupid plane you rode in on. Why the fuck are you here, anyway?" he added, ignoring Bruce's frantic shut up, shut up now gestures behind Clint's back. "What's your excuse?"
Clint did not react, as far as Bruce could see. "My wife and three kids were Dusted," he said curtly. "Excuse enough for me."
"Shit," Rocket swore. He grabbed the desk as he spun past it and came to a stop. Bruce wasn't great at reading raccoon emotions, but Rocket seemed like regretted what he said. "Man, I - I didn't know, I'm sorry."
Clint shrugged stiffly. "It's fine." Without another word, he turned back to Vision's operation table and picked up his metal travel mug, holding onto it like it was his last anchor to life.
Rocket stared after him, face unreadable again. "Okay," he said lowly, almost to himself. "Okay. Ey, Banner, give me the broken shit in the bag."
Bruce realized that he'd dropped the pillowcase with the broken tablet in it. He hastily scooped it up - nudging away the golden Lab, who was sniffing it curiously - and shoved it at Rocket. "Got a plan?" he asked.
Rocket had already turned to the workbench and was prying the casing apart. "Never do," he said offhandedly. He cast a glance at Clint - the archer was now sitting on the operating table again, sipping quietly from his travel mug - and added, "Just hand me tools and shit. Left most of mine on the Benatar, now I'll have to figure out these damn Earth ones -"
"The Benatar?" Bruce repeated, raising his eyebrows.
"Quill's ship."
Bruce screwed up his face. "What kind of person names their ship after 80s pop stars?" He saw Rocket's unimpressed face and added, "Not to insult him or anything, I just… it seems a little weird."
"Nah, it's weird," Rocket agreed. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "Tell ya what. Pull up a chair, give me some tools and whatever tech on ya you don't think you'll need, and I'll tell you about 'em."
"You sure?"
"Gotta keep myself busy somehow."
The night wound on. Clint, who didn't have the foggiest idea of what was going on, alternated between sitting with Lucky - the dog - and scratching his belly, and sitting on the workbench while Rocket tinkered. Bruce had no idea what Rocket was trying to do; all he could do was hand Rocket tools and scraps of metal, while the raccoon assembled some junky monstrosity on the table. All the while he prattled on about the Guardians. Bruce got the impression that the Guardians were basically the Avengers of space - a little less organized, and a lot more like a close-knit family, but the analogy still applied.
"Peter's a dumbass," Rocket said matter-of-factly. "Pass me the screwdriver. No, the one with the laser. Thanks. Half-human, half-Celestial - his dad fucked his way through half the d'ast galaxy in the hopes of making another him. We blew the asshole up two or three years ago. Fuckin' deserved it, after what he put Peter through.
"Peter's head-over-heels in love with Gamora. Tall, scary green chick. Thanos kidnapped her and destroyed her homeworld and turned her into an assassin, so she got a great childhood goin' for her, eh?"
"No."
"It was sarcasm."
"Wow, that's something I'd never expect from you."
"Hey, look at that, you get it. Yeah, so for some reason, Gamora decided that it would be a great idea to get with Peter. Can do a hell of a lot better, if you ask me. But Peter treats her good, I guess. Good as he can.
"Then you got Drax. Drax the Destroyer. Dumb as a sack of rocks. No filter. No concept of metaphors. His wife and daughter were killed by Kree, and he decided to go on a fuckin' rampage. We met 'im in prison, actually, that was a fun time. He's buddy-buddy with Mantis - bug-eyed chick who can feel your emotions when she touches you. Can control minds too, kinda, if she kicks her moral code to the curb long enough to do it. They got the same sense of humor. Practically nonexistent, for both of 'em, but you know, you take what you get."
He fell silent, prodded the contraption with his finger. It sparked, but did not explode, and he looked slightly disappointed. Bruce felt something there in the silence. It was like a thread hanging from an unraveled sweater, and being the idiot he was, he tugged on it. "Who else?" he said softly. "Besides yourself."
Rocket's claws screeched across the tabletop. "Groot," he said quietly. "My best friend. Then he died, and grew again, and I took care of his tiny punk ass until... Until I couldn't anymore."
"What happened?" Bruce said. He didn't understand what Rocket meant, and he wasn't even entirely sure who Groot was.
"Thanos happened." The raccoon snapped his fingers. "Like that," he said. "He was gone."
And then, he turned to Clint, who was perched on top of the workbench next to Bruce. "See, I know what you feel," Rocket whispered. "I know."
"You do?" said Clint, still clinging to the cup.
"I know," Rocket whispered again, and an ancient and terrible grief clung to his voice. Clint slowly lifted his chin. A light of understanding flickered in his eyes.
"Coffee, anyone?" Clint said, sliding off the workbench.
Bruce nodded once. "Cream and sugar, if it's there," he said.
Clint's questioning gaze included Rocket.
"Yeah," the raccoon croaked. "Give me whatever you got."
"Try giving it a couple more volts."
Rocket swiveled in his chair and gave Clint a truly spectacular skeptical look. "Give me a good reason why I should do that," he drawled.
Clint sipped from his mug and said, "Just do it. Can't explain it, I just have a feeling."
Rocket grinned. "Ain't that reassuring," he said gleefully. "Okay. Here goes." He flipped a couple of switches and adjusted a lever. It did wonders - Bruce assumed as much, since he only had a vague idea of what Rocket was aiming for. At least it turned on this time.
"How the hell did you know it would do that?" he asked Clint.
The archer shrugged. Something passed over his eyes. "I remembered things," he said simply. "From Loki."
Bruce's heart sank. "Oh," he said. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up."
Clint made a face and waved his free hand dismissively. "Nah, it's fine," he said. He took another sip of his coffee. "That time isn't ever going to go away. I might as well use it how I can."
"Loki?" Rocket said. "Ain't that Thor's brother? What'd he do to you?"
"Brainwashing. Made me a mindless slave for a couple of days."
Rocket continued to stare at Clint. "So you got torn apart, huh," he said. "Unmade."
Clint nodded. The two shared an unreadable glance that made Bruce feel slightly left out - and he recoiled slightly, so sickened that he'd even felt that. He'd never had someone completely break him, turn him into something else. Not like these two had. He'd done that all himself, just fine.
They took a break for lunch at 2:00 in the morning. Bruce and Clint huddled around the coffee machine, shoulders slumping and eyes bloodshot. Lucky followed Rocket around, hopelessly begging for a piece of Rocket's thrown-together roast beef sandwich.
Clint looked paler than usual - too pale, for someone who'd spent the past two years in the Iowa sun. "You alright?" Bruce asked him.
The archer took a long pull from his coffee mug, and went back to refill it. Bruce thought he heard something clunking inside his mug; when Rocket cursed and dropped to the ground to pick up a tool, he figured he'd just heard it hitting the ground. "I'm fine," Clint said.
"You need anything?"
"Nah, I'll live. It's… just been a long day."
Bruce nodded, patted him on the shoulder, and went back to the workbench.
"So."
The sun threw spears of light across the laboratory, glimmering on the polished worktables and tools. Bruce glanced at the sky and ran a hand over his face, feeling the stubble. It was a red dawn. Rain still fell, though it was more of a muted drizzle with occasional rumbles of distant thunder.
"We got it," Rocket continued. He prodded the communicator with a wrench and added, "It's as close as I can get to the thing the Benatar used. We just gotta hope it works."
"With all the effort we put into it, it better," Clint said dryly.
Rocket scoffed. "Effort? You just sat there and looked pretty the whole time. You call that effort?"
"Yep. It's tough, looking this good -"
"Kids," Bruce said sternly. The two glanced at him, then at each other, and rolled their eyes. "Seriously," Bruce said. "Let's give it a shot. Rocket, turn it on for us."
"Sure thing."
Rocket flicked a switch and keyed in a few digits on a makeshift keyboard; the letters on it were nothing that Bruce had ever seen, except in bits and snatches from the Ancient One's journals. The whole thing was alien and strange to him, though he was still entranced by it. They'd sacrificed a blender, two tablets, some scrap metal, and an orgasmically beautiful particle accelerator to create the space radio. Clint was right. After all the shit they'd destroyed to put into it, the thing had better work. Bruce leaned forward in the swivel chair and watched the lights blink on the comm unit.
A soft tone sounded from behind him. He didn't turn to look, but Clint did, heaving his body off the workspace and disappearing from sight. Rocket grimaced and typed a few more things. "Not connecting," he said heavily. "Probably lost the Benatar. Lemme try the escape pod frequency, and then we'll see."
"Uh, Bruce?" Clint called.
Something in Clint's voice made him uneasy, and Bruce immediately wheeled his chair over to where he was. "What?"
A holographic display shone before them, showing a closeup of the curving edge of earth with a starfield glimmering above it. Bruce froze.
"I'm guessing this isn't good."
A massive object had just entered the atmosphere over Wakanda. "You're probably right," Bruce said grimly. "I've got a bad feeling about this. Rocket, d'you -"
He turned to the raccoon, but he was listening intently to the comm unit. His ears twitched frantically. There was a sharp squeal like an old dial-up internet connection, and everyone cringed.
Then a click, and a soft tone. Rocket recoiled. "What the fuck -"
"Rocket."
The voice that emerged from the speakers was coldly feminine, robotic. Rocket relaxed slightly, though not by much. "Nebula?" he said. "The hell are you doing?"
"No time to explain - listen," the woman snapped. "There was a fuck-up on Titan. I'm on Kraglin's hunk of junk ship, and we just entered Terran airspace. You need to -"
"Kraglin's got a -" Rocket cut off with a snarl and seized the microphone. "Listen, good talk. Get Quill on the line," he demanded.
"I can't hear you," Nebula said curtly. "Your signal's breaking up."
"Get Quill on the line," Rocket shouted, "you useless hunk of metal!"
"Harsh," Clint muttered.
"Shut up!"
"No, you shut it! I need to talk to Quill, lemme talk to him!" There was a note of desperation in Rocket's voice. "Nebula, I'm sorry, let me talk to Quill, please -"
"No time for that," Nebula said. "Just tell the Terrans not to blow us out of the fucking sky!"
"Nebula, you -!"
Another voice spoke up, overlapping Rocket's words. "Tell 'em we got Tony Stark," he said.
A rush of relief swept through Bruce. He grabbed the makeshift microphone, ignoring Rocket's curses and grabby hands. "This is Bruce Banner," he said into it. "I'm his friend, let me talk to him."A rush of relief swept through Bruce. He grabbed the makeshift microphone. "This is Bruce Banner," he said into it. "I'm his friend, let me talk to him."
"He's been passed out for the past seven hours," the unknown man snapped. "Got stabbed through the gut on Titan."
"He what -"
"Shut up and let us land," Nebula snarled. "Rocket, we're homing in on the signal from your comm. Plowing through, whether you like it or not. Lift any force fields or shields to let us through -"
"Shit!" Clint yelped. He sprinted across the lab and ran to the door, practically launching his coffee cup onto a random table. "Nakia!"
The door to the lab opened, and the short-haired Wakandan woman burst through. "What?" she said sharply.
Clint approached her. "We need you to authorize turning off the shield," he said, a pleading note in his voice. "Please."
Nakia shook her head. "We can't," she said. "There are still Outriders outside the shield - we can't afford to let them through now."
"Not the entire shield, just a little bit - if that's possible."
"Why?"
"There's a massive alien ship with Tony Stark on it barrelling through the atmosphere, and we need to make sure it doesn't blow up with him still on it," Clint snapped.
"Who's Tony Stark?" Nakia said blankly.
Clint threw his hands up in the air. "You've got to be kidding -"
"I am." Throwing Clint a quick grin with way too many teeth in it, Nakia slipped over to a holographic display and keyed in a few codes. "I will give the ship access to the shields. You better be telling the truth."
"Dead honest," Bruce confirmed.
Clint opened his mouth, hesitated. "While you're at it, can you fire off a text to Queen Shuri and get her to tell the UN that the ship's friendly?" he said. Bruce blinked, not expecting Clint's mind to work that fast, and immediately felt bad for it. Clint was pretty smart - it just didn't show that often.
"Will do," Nakia muttered, swiping through submenus of code. She swore and clicked a few random buttons.
The comm unit crackled. "We're coming in hot," the man said tensely. "You guys in a forest or some shit?"
"It's an illusion," Nakia shouted over her shoulder.
"What she said," Bruce agreed. "Just fly straight through it and you should be fine."
"If you're lying to us and we crash and die," Nebula snarled, "I will personally come back from the dead just to hang you with your own intestines."
"What she said," said the other man. Bruce groaned and rubbed his temples.
There was a loud crack of thunder. "Done," Nakia said. Her fingers flew, drafting a message to Shuri. "Should be clear to land -"
A great howl of displaced air, and suddenly the windows were filled with metal. The floor shook; Bruce grabbed the edge of the table. Through the window, he saw a massive ship - a bristling, rusted mess, like an Imperial Destroyer knockoff toy suddenly given life - heading straight for the open field on which the battle had taken place. Bruce stared at it, a bit petrified. It was easily as large as the Asgardian refugee vessel.
His feet took him to the window, where the red light of dawn seethed over the jungle and rain still drove down. Thunder rumbled. Bruce squinted through the rain-streaked window, hoping to see some signs of life from the ship.
The lab door swung open; there were hushed voices, one of them a familiar rumbling baritone. Bruce hugged his arms over his stomach and stared at the reflection of the room behind him. He could see Thor standing awkwardly in the doorway, standing aside briefly for Nakia to leave, and then returning Clint's welcoming hug. He looked like hell. His eyes were slow, and his hair was damp and stuck up in every direction, as if it had just been furiously toweled dry. Bruce's stomach lurched. He put it down to guilt. Must have been guilt.
The thought that maybe the night's massive thunderstorm had been caused by Thor, tossing and turning in restless sleep, made him cringe a bit. That there was definitely guilt.
Thor glanced up from scratching Lucky's ears, meeting Bruce's eyes in the reflection.
The others filtered out of the room, presumably heading for the courtyard to retrieve Tony. Lucky trotted happily after his owner, claws clicking on the floor. Bruce turned to face the lab. A flash of golden hair raced past the laboratory door - probably Steve. "Bruce," Thor said, in a strangled voice.
"Yeah?" Bruce replied.
"I -"
Thor stopped, exhaled sharply, and walked towards Bruce. "I'm sorry," he said, "for what I said earlier. I… I didn't know. I didn't understand."
Now that they were less than three feet apart, Bruce desperately wanted to smooth down Thor's hair; it was seriously starting to bother him, now. "It's alright," he said softly. "I forgive you." Thor blinked, clearly not expecting it. Some of the fog lifted from his eyes. "Really," Bruce added. He really did - the blame lay more on Bruce himself, who spoke to maim and hurt, to make Thor hurt. "I was an asshole, too."
Thor's lips twitched, and he said, "I understand." And somehow, Bruce knew that he did. There was one last rumble of distant thunder, and the rain stopped.
Silence rang in the lab. Bruce felt no desire to break it; it was the soft, dusky silence of the world after a thunderstorm, cool and peaceful. Wordlessly, he spread both his hands. Thor stepped forward carefully, lifting his own arms to return the embrace. Bruce stood corrected - Thor's hug was definitely better than Clint's; something about it dulled the tension in his muscles, calmed his seething mind. He smelled inexplicably of damp earth and pine, and Bruce knew there was some kind of fancy word for that smell -
Thor cleared his throat softly. "Uh, Bruce? Why's there a ship parked outside?"
Bruce sprang away from Thor as if he was on fire. "Oh - Tony's back," he said quickly. "A couple of Rocket's friends brought him back."
Thor immediately brightened - though his face had seemed strangely blank before. "Great!" he said, walking backwards towards the door. He accidentally bumped into the table with the comm unit on it, and both he and Bruce made abortive movements toward it to stop it from falling. Thor steadied it carefully. "Right. Let's go."
The god of thunder scurried into the hall, caught Stormbreaker as it hurtled past, and practically sprinted down the hall. Bruce blinked owlishly a few times. He could hear Thor's footsteps thundering, for lack of a better word, down the hall. For some reason his legs were leaden, refusing to move.
Only the thought of Tony - injured, unconscious, dying - spurred him to start running after him.
The princess - now queen, apparently - was now huddled at the back of the Starbucks with her bodyguards, reading some kind of message. He watched them for a brief moment, before turning to the counter to order. Coffee was far more important at the moment.
He had been in the reporters' section during the first half of the meeting. He had seen the hesitation in her face, when the Secretary-General asked her if Thanos could be stopped. And just now, after the convulsing security guard had been taken away on a gurney by paramedics, he had looked into her eyes and seen the faintest taint of magic on her. Somebody had used it near her recently. It clung to the young queen, even now.
He took his drink from the barista, nodded his thanks, and stepped out into the New York City streets. As he waited for a small crowd of tourists to pass, his eyes drifted north towards Greenwich Village. He took a sip from his drink and turned his back to it.
A visit to Wakanda was in order.
