"I must apologize again Charud; I feel simply awful about what happened. I failed to account for your advanced metabolism; the more... unpleasant side effects on your psychology were a result of a build up of secondary compounds resulting from your rapid-"
"Jarvis, it's fine. I'm alright, only a little worse for wear. And honestly, high as balls or not, I did kinda indulge in some excessive force back there." I said as I rubbed the back of my neck with the arm that wasn't occupied by an IV replacing what I'd sweat out on my way out of my rampage.
"Do you think? Honestly Rumlow's doing better than most of them, and I don't think he'll ever walk again." Nat chided as she tapped her foot on the floor nearby.
"Hey, I said I was sorry, but honestly what did you lose there? Rumlow knows more than most of those weekend nazi cosplayers; and even he was just a catspaw for Pierce. I could have just run down the halls with my arms out like an airplane and turned them all into chunky salsa, and all it would have done is made more work for the cleaners." I shrugged.
"You still beat thirty human beings to death with a copy machine."
"Copy machine? Jesus I really was high, I thought it was a floor waxer. I guess that does explain why they were exploding into colorful clouds... Kinda figured that was just more hallucinations."
"My point is, try and reign it in a little?"
"Natasha, come on. Who here hasn't gone on a drug fueled rampage and killed a few dozen enemy agents?" Clint broke in with a little black humor.
"Uhh.. I haven't." Steve said.
"Well of course not. Come on, what was it for you Natasha?" I said, grinning.
She sighed. "Methcathinone, I was infiltrating a distribution ring in Prague and things went sour, a stray shot hit a crate of the stuff and it just went all over my face."
"Jesus." I said, feeling pretty lucky at that moment.
"Yeah, I didn't sleep for like four days. I lost my gun at some point so I think I must have either stolen one of the dealers, or just found something else to use; either way, not my finest moment."
"I did see a guy back in the war who took a bunch of Pervitin we found in a HYDRA safehouse." Steve piped up. "He said he thought they were vitamins."
"Pfff, sure." I put in.
He grimaced. "He ended up throwing most of it up, but he still charged a damn machine gun nest the next morning, screaming about spiders in Polish. Nearly gave me a heart attack, but he survived; even got to go home last I heard."
"Good ending! What about you Clint?"
"Night mission in Pakistan. Very hush hush. Wasn't nearly as fun as yours; mostly because I kept thinking about how my CO was gonna kill me if I didn't go back through the cave and pull all the arrows out of everybody. I thought I had forgotten one, and I went back to go get it, only to find that some other enemy combatants had showed up, wondering where the guys guarding the cave were, and I killed all them too and had to go find all my arrows all over again."
"Holy shit. Well like with most things I guess I got off easy. Hey Jarvis, what's Tony up to?"
"Currently reviewing much of the data we retrieved from the HYDRA facility. Incidentally; now that you are lucid, I believe that you should know that your hunch was correct. References to a target of interest associated with the nation of Wakanda are made multiple times in recent entries."
I sat up sharply and shook away some of the cobwebs in my brain. "Who was it then?"
"A Ullyses Klaue sir."
---------------
It turned out that Jarvis had suits in my size; of course he did, the consummate robotic valet that he was. Wearing an all black suit in the African sun sounded kind of like a terrible idea, but once I was out in it, it didn't seem so bad. Of course, regardless of destination, I had to arrive in style. I just hoped Klaue's men weren't stupid enough to ruin it before the dust could. Some of them DID aim guns at me, before someone I assumed was the man himself arrived and shoved the barrels down, shouting at them in Afrikaans before waving up at me. I floated in, pulling my sunglasses off to set them in a pocket.
"Ulysses Klaue I presume." I said as I smiled down at him. Hovering a foot off the ground never ceased to be an effective power move with the normals.
"You have me at something of a disadvantage. I am familiar with you of course, but I never learned your name." He replied; a large, ugly man with a distinct accent; only most of his sweat from the heat.
"Charud's my name. I'm here to give you an offer. But I don't think you're going to like it." I said blithely, brushing my nails on my suit and examining them idly.
"And that would be?"
"You tell me where you've hidden the Vibranium, and I don't blow this ship to kingdom come."
He twitched slightly. I doubt I'd have seen it even a few months ago. But lately I'd been feeling... observant. "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm only a simple small business man; I've never even heard of-"
I cut him off with one extended finger, above which a single glowing point of light began to grow. "I've just recovered from a very stressful experience Klaue, so I want to give you just this one warning. If you don't take me right to your Vibranium, there will be a very loud noise and then lots and lots of things will break."
His stare widened, and several of his men began to back away. A few more leveled their guns again. "Come now, there's no need to go that far. I'm certain that we can come to a deal; we're both civilized men are we-"
"No." I said, lifting my arm higher.
"What?" He asked, taking a step back himself.
"I am not a man. I am a saiyan. And you used up your one chance." I said; rising higher as the ball atop my finger grew bigger. I bounced it from my fingertip to my palm top, and rolled the ki within around as it expanded, turning from orange to yellow.
"Wait a minute- Stop I'll do whatever you-"
"DRAGON'S EGG STAR!" I shouted over him, and pitched downward.
---------------
Bits of debris rained down around me; much of it on fire or at least glowing hot, and... yup!
"Oh hey he did armor the special cargo hold. That's convenient; I'd have hated to have to go around grabbing up all the little bits of scattered Vibranium off the ground." I said, approaching the room sized chunk that had fallen out more or less intact, when I heard a low groan and cursing in Afrikaans.
Klaue was pushing a huge chunk of debris aside, clutching at a bleeding, mangled mess that had once been his right arm.
"Wow; you actually survived that? You are a RIDICULOUSLY lucky man." I said, hefting the cargo container of Vibranium onto my shoulder. "Hope that luck holds out for you, because those guys in uniform coming this way look real mad." I said, squinting into the distance as Klaue threw up heavily nearby. "Gross." I said, before lifting off and flying north.
---------------
A few intuitive leaps, Howard Stark's old journals, and my own ki sense were all I needed to find Wakanda. It was a jewell amidst the wilderness, hidden away beneath a technological shell that I have to say, I wasn't really expecting. It put every lost city and hidden country from my memories of fiction to shame, and my awe only grew as I slid through the thin sheet of energy hiding it from view, and saw it open up beneath me, brilliant and scintillating in the setting sun.
I wondered how many people lived here; and found my answer with surprising ease; just take the density of any given number of power levels per unit area and apply it to the full area covered by the shield, and it came out to... around three million. Three million people sitting on more wealth and technology than the rest of the planet combined; the ultimate One Percenters. It was going to be pretty funny when the rest of the world found out that the real fortune 500 was more like 499 black people and Tony Stark. There were flying patrol cars rising up to meet me as I held aloft the huge chunk of their stolen property, giving them a jaunty wave. They seemed uncertain as to how to deal with me... so they fell back on what must just be procedure, and pointed downward as they began to descend. I shrugged and followed along, until I came to a stop and dropped my little peace offering with a mighty crash onto the tarmac they'd brought me down to.
"Stay right there!" One of the Wakandan officers said as I lifted my hands slowly. Not that it would make much of a difference. Interesting that he used english; I suppose it was a safe bet for a universal language, especially if they knew about me. "Why are you here? What have you brought into our borders?" he demanded.
I gave him a small smile, and then turned to the box; reaching out and fitting my fingers into one looked like a door. It took some wrenching, but I managed to peel it open, and yank a panel off, out of which spilled a great deal of glittering, bluish material mixed with broken glass and steel. "Someone seems to have taken this from you without permission. I thought I would bring it back. Tell me, may I speak with your leader? Or is "King T'Chaka" just an attraction for the tourists?"
--------------
It rather turned out that he wasn't. I was a bit surprised to find that such an advanced nation would still be ruled by a monarchy, but then I suppose if the British joined Starfleet they'd probably keep their queen... Wait, dear god, was the Electoral College still going to exist when I boot strapped this planet up into space? Not if I could damn well help it.
King T'Chaka was a gracious if wary host, he shook my hand when I was escorted into his office, after he'd ordered the fancy technological handcuffs that did nothing taken off me, at the protest of his guards, and then waved them from the room entirely. He was an unassuming figure, aging gracefully, with an unusually strong grip for a man his age, and the strangest purple eyes. "So. Charud." He said softly, pulling a chair up in the very fancy office space he'd brought me into; a robotic drone hovering near and depositing a tray with a selection of drinks next to us. "Ordinarily it is illegal for outsiders to visit Wakanda; but I think it could be interpreted that the law only applies to other residents of the planet Earth. Particularly in light of your service to the Kingdom of Wakanda." He said with some good humor, pouring something into a cup and passing it to me. I took it as a signal, and poured another cup and passed it to him; and apparently that was the right thing to do, since he smiled. Or possibly he was laughing at the ignorant foreigner. Still better than glaring though!
"Thanks for the hospitality. It isn't too often that I get to have conversations with kings. Most of the ones I'm familiar with aren't nearly so congenial."
"Ahh, it is hard to find good kings these days." he said, shaking his head in commiseration. "But before we speak further, there is one thing I must know."
"Ask away your Majesty."
"You could have sold Klaue's stolen Vibranium and lived like a king. Tell me. Why did you return it to us?" King T'Chaka said, keeping me fixed in his strange violet eyes.
I sipped from whatever drink they'd brought me and swirled it in my glass, watching it move. "A few reasons. The first is, I don't really need the money." Not since Tony had so graciously put my name to some of those patents he'd filed after examining my tech anyway. "The second is, it wasn't mine to sell. It was stolen from the people of Wakanda. And third; even if this was enough Vibranium to do what I want to do; which I am not completely confident that it is, I would still rather have Wakanda as my ally than a truckload of Vibranium. Your people have a lot more to offer than just a stone after all. You've forgotten more about working with Vibranium than I will ever know; and based on what I've seen, the development of your technology is at least on par with many of the great empires in space." I paused, taking a sip. "You simply don't have the resources to properly apply it."
His polite, genteel smile didn't falter for even a moment. "And what, would you say, is the proper application?"
"To grow beyond this comfortable cradle of a planet, and take your first steps out into the universe."
"Perhaps we simply have no interest in the rest of the universe."
I sighed. "I don't think that's true at all, but indulging your hypothetical, I would say it doesn't matter. The universe has an interest in you. You saw the battle of New York. Do you think that once he was done conquering the rest of the planet, that Loki would be content to let the most advanced and powerful city just sit pretty under their umbrella forever? You could hide from him maybe; but in the end, I was able to find you, and Loki is a master of the art of illusions; and he had Saiyan manpower and technology on his side. It would have only been a matter of time."
"Hmm. In truth you echo my thoughts back to me. During the battle, I had already begun to mobilize the border tribe and the Dora Milaje to face the aliens in New York; our secrets weren't worth allowing that to go on. But then before I could send them, you became a giant monkey, and the invasion was over as quickly as it began." He shrugged impartially.
"I... Try not to make a habit of that."
"For which I am quite grateful, it would be a dreadful expense to have to rebuild my palace." He joked. "I agree with your reasoning, and I am grateful for your candor and honesty in returning our Vibranium. In truth, were I a true absolute monarch, Wakanda would be your ally immediately. But of course, a king cannot rule subjects who do not consent to be ruled. I must convene a council of the tribes, and hear my advisors wisdom before I commit to such a decision." He said, standing up from his chair and walking to the desk nearby; where he pulled a small box from a drawer and offered me a necklace of simple silver- no, NOT silver; vibranium links, ending in an amulet in the shape of a cat's head. "In the mean time, you shall be my guest. Any who see you wear this will know to treat you as they would my own person, and you will enjoy my hospitality until a decision can be reached. No matter the final decision, you are welcome to return to Wakanda whenever you wish."
I took his gift and shook his hand, considering that my dismissal. Well, it could have gone worse. Now, where do they keep the kitchens..
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AN: Extra long today; hopefully this makes up for the long absence.
King T'chaka having Targaryen eyes is something I made up for this AU. It's an effect of eating the heart shaped herb.
