November 4, 20XX — WAKANDAN ROYAL PALACE
At the royal palace, the jigsaw puzzle that was the mystery of Peggy Carter's death suddenly fit for Felicia Hardy. After all, what she saw could not be denied or any more obvious.
"Calm down, T'Challa. I've never seen you so agitated."
The king growled. "Could you at least grant me dignity if you plan to use me, W'Kabi!"
"No. I've never understood that. For revolutionaries, dignity and honour should not matter. For ordinary people, yes. But for us? No, not at all. Why should I hold back when I have an entire state to go up against? When you have billions, an army, and the whole international order? It's stupid, really."
Felicia breathed, staring with a lump in her throat. 'So it is them…'
The blackmailer responsible for triggering the murder of Peggy Carter, of Teela, and for setting her up.
'W'Kabi and Okoye…'
The Wakandan couple took different roles. W'Kabi was sitting at a table sipping tea like he had many points in his life, except tonight, it was with full authority. Not as a guest, but as the man that owned this room. His wife was the enforcer. She stood there with a spear. She stared at the nude King T'Challa without blinking.
This wasn't about perviness. This wasn't about mockery. This was political blackmail and nothing more.
"Fine. Fine! But leave my sister out of it!" T'Challa yelled.
"No," W'Kabi replied plainly. "She is apart of the system that benefits."
"A system that works!"
"Says the person who benefits most from it," W'Kabi retorted.
"I have changed and helped this country evolve! So did my father and his father before him! We have all done what was necessary for Wakanda. To make us different from the rest of Africa!"
That was exactly what W'Kabi wanted to hear. He scoffed and looked at his old friend up and down. The Heart-Shaped Herb made his physical body next to perfect, yet in his mind, his brain was rotting. "And there it is. Us and them. You draw a line between humans when there should not. We are not that different. You should realize what a foolish thought that is. Look at this world. Look at what it's turning into. The gods are weeping at us. Don't you see the signs? Don't you see how close we are to being like the rest of Africa as you say?"
"What signs, W'Kabi!? All I see is madness!"
"Spider-Man. Spider-Woman. The Lizard." The list brought a pause to the world. There was something akin to venom, hate, respect, and awe in W'Kabi's words. "Is it a coincidence? With their arrival, a new wave of inequality has arisen. Think about it. First it was class, then wealth, and now it is the very muscles that make us. Their very existence is a threat to the rest of us. They're stronger than us, faster than us. Perhaps even smarter. And at some point, there will come someone that is superior in every possible facet of what makes us stand on equal grounds. We cannot and should not allow that." W'Kabi sank the rest of his drink and set the empty glass down. "You talk about our neighbouring countries like they are aliens. But the real aliens are those with special abilities. You speak more highly of Spider-Man than the impoverished. Don't you see how ridiculous that is? We are one hurricane away from being like 'them'. We are one Creature Z away from being like 'them'. It is not the poor that are our enemy, it is them."
"So what is your solution? To make enemies of them? To wage a war?"
"The more I walked the world, the more I saw how similar everyone was. What I desire is for a great democracy and a new world order for everyone everywhere. To make sure people like you don't make decisions that ruin us. I am not a religious man. I am not saying all this out of a misguided message from a god. Humanity must come together. They must work together and see who their true enemy is. Or perhaps they will come together by making them a threat."
"W'Kabi…!" T'Challa growled. "That is foolish talk! Spider-Man is no threat! None of them are as long as we don't make them!"
"You're not changing my mind, T'Challa, because you're narrow-minded. You see it from the perspective of a king who knows he won't die by their hands. You don't see it from our perspective. Us ordinary men and women, who will likely suffer." W'Kabi stood up and dusted himself off. "Okoye, my love?"
"You are allowed to make decisions that kill hundreds." Okoye approached the bed. "And yet you are spared of all consequences. Really, the only thing kings like you experience is a beheading. While people starve and beg and live without dignity for decades, you are criticized, experience a gut of guilt, and maybe killed. Maybe. And that is all after you eat all the cake and lavish all you want. Everyone experiences death, it is nothing special. You hardly died of real consequences, wouldn't you agree?"
Okoye pulled out a phone and snapped a photo of the compromising king. From through the vents, Felicia winced.
It was W'Kabi who explained. "In modern times, we have devised an appropriate punishment for people like you. So state secrets. Your nudes, your sister's nudes, your family's entire sexual history, your internet search history, your family's search history, your secret meetings with criminals, your tax evasions, the death responsible under your watch, the unemployment. Everything you've ever done. Over the next year, it will be propaganda after propaganda. No one will ever speak well of you ever again. You will be memed. You will be mocked. On the internet, in bars and cafes, your name will be spoken with no respect. That's the only way to take down people like you without coming off as monsters."
King T'Challa could only growl. He could only fight against the cuffs that restrained him to his own bed. W'Kabi chuckled.
"Oh, I completely forgot. You ARE one of them now, aren't you? You took the Heart-shaped Herb. But you're so pathetic right now that I can hardly tell."
As if. W'Kabi knew full well what T'Challa had done. From the moment he ate that fruit, he was an enemy of the greatest calibre. He was an enemy deserving of this.
"It is quite silly. For a king to take the super soldier herb and not his own Dora Milaje." Okoye smiled and laughed alongside her husband. "It's simply what this system of yours does. All it will do is widen the gap between the ordinary and the extraordinary."
"It won't!"
"Right, and who was the first person you planned the share the fruit with?" Okoye kept walking and snapping photos from all angles. "Oh, right, Peggy Carter. You don't see how that wouldn't stoke our fears?"
"As a matter of fact," W'Kabi continued, "we may not have even gone to these lengths if you had not consumed the Heart-shaped Herb. But…we wanted to prove to ourselves and to you that right now, there is still a chance. That we can still maintain the equilibrium that the gods have blessed humanity."
At this point, there was only desperation coming out of T'Challa. "I was planning to grow the Heart-shaped Herbs. To give them to the rest of Wakanda—"
"Right, and I bet the first consumer would have been your sister or your mother," W-Kabi intervened. "In the world we envision, there would be a vote and the people would agree to hand to those most worthy, whether it is the military or those with sickness. But it would have been a logical, community-based decision. What you will be doing for the next decade is monopolizing the herb for your own family and friends, nothing more." Okoye stopped with the photos. It was enough and W'Kabi still had something more to say. "Ah, and before I forget, Felix Faeth. We know much about him."
"We even know about how you requested his aid for the Heart-Shaped Herb." Okoye's statement was plain and to the point. T'Challa could not deny anything because the Dora Milaje had been there, listening. They were always listening, and for once, they acted. "We like Felix. He's a good man. If it were a fair world, he would be someone worthy of the fruit."
"Just…just tell me what you plan to do. What do you plan to do next?" T'Challa asked.
"There was an attempt to infiltrate the garden by SHIELD, strangely." Okoye looked up at the ceiling, up at the vents, and Felicia had to jerk back to hide. Okoye looked back down at the king and said, "They were well-equipped. Too well-equipped. Princess Shuri is either blessed by the gods or was warned by someone to have been able to intercept them."
T'Challa didn't understand. He wasn't there for it after all.
"So, she moved the fruits to the other Heart Garden. There are two of them, correct? One in a modern facility and one here in the palace."
"Shuri moved the fruits? What? I…"
"Don't worry, as for the men that tried to steal the fruits, we executed them." Okoye smiled. "And now we have the means to infiltrate the Heart Garden—and we don't need you for it. Your fingerprints, your pupils, your blood…it was all on a little device they had on them."
"SHIELD…? What, why would they…?"
"Who knows. Who cares. Perhaps Peggy Carter betrayed you, perhaps it was a rogue cell. It matters little," W'Kabi said. At long last, they were starting to leave the room. "Goodbye, T'Challa. You will spend the rest of your life here while we manage your affairs. And if you dare even try to escape, your sister will be promptly executed."
The king tried to scream and shout, only to recognize how pointless it was. His head hung downward and he listened to his own double-doors closing on him. Trapping him in his chambers.
"So, Herbie, do we free the king now or later?"
…along with Felicia.
***
Down the halls of the Royal Palace, the blackmailers were talking in annoyed tones. They had been alerted to a new presence and now it was a matter of what to do with them.
"Agent Shadowcat…" Okoye clicked her tongue. "She was there when I killed Carter. From her profile, she likely has my scent or something like that."
"Are you sure? In that kind of situation? And it's not like you directly confronted her," W'Kabi pointed out.
"Still, it can't be a coincidence that she's here."
"But peacefully? Whether it's about them trying to steal the Heart-shaped Herbs or Peggy Carter, it seems strange for them to send a wildcard like her. Remember that other agent, Coulson? He'd be a better fit. We know him too."
The more Okoye thought about it, the stronger her husband's point became. "This is very strange…"
They stopped strutting. The couple were being escorted and guarded by two additional members of the Dora Milaje. Okoye pressed a finger to her earpiece. "Update on Agent Shadowcat. She wishes to speak to the king or the princess, Strong One?"
Five seconds later, a response arrived: "Either one, Adored One. It is an emergency of the highest calibre."
"She cannot elaborate, Strong One?"
"No, Adored One."
Okoye glanced at her husband. She pursed her lips. "Tell her that the king will down there shortly." She removed her hand from her earpiece. "Let's go."
"Where?"
"To complete our mission. I have a bad feeling about all this, W'Kabi."
"Now? But...we should wait until we have everything secured."
"With a SHIELD agent in our foyer? No, it's too risky. At the very least, we need to get this done."
Okoye walked with a sudden, tight urgency, and W'Kabi had no choice but to agree and do the same. Everything about the change in their posture—Okoye's narrowed eyes, W'Kabi's clenched jaw—it told of fear.
"Strong One," Okoye suddenly said into her earpiece, "if that agent does anything, distract them. Don't attack, just...serve them food. Anything. We can't let anyone realize what we've done."
Ultimately, they planned to maintain this facade for at least a year. If not that, then a month. A sufficient amount of time that would allow them to ruin King T'Challa's name. That was the bare-minimum.
They reached the last guarded hallway, where two Dora Milaje stood rigid and unblinking. The women parted silently. One of them held something in their hand: a black camera. Okoye and W'Kabi passed between them, although not without Okoye taking the device and saluting them.
"Thank you. Everything works as it is supposed to?"
"Yes, ma'am," replied the Dora Milaje. Okoye nodded. Off they went again.
Beyond the hall was a dead end—or what appeared to be one. Okoye withdrew the peculiar camera device for this supposed dead-end. Why? Because it wasn't. This was where the Heart Garden was.
Looking at the device in her hands a second time, it really did appear to be an ordinary black-mattee camera. W'Kabi watched it with restrained fascination. The SHIELD infiltrators had carried it strapped to their suits, and it was only due to Princess Shuri's astute eyes that they saw it as something more. Yes, thanks to Shuri, they understood exactly how they'd enter the god-chamber.
The device pulsed once, as if waking.
"It still unsettles me," W'Kabi muttered, stepping closer. "That SHIELD would dare this."
"Later," Okoye said. "If Shadowcat is here for the men we killed or for the director we killed, then we cannot waste time."
"I told you we should have asked more questions about them," W'Kabi said. "But no, you wanted to execute them."
"Later," Okoye emphasized.
She started investigating the wall. "Where is it, where is it…" The wall was just a plain wall. Nothing out of place. She clicked her tongue and grunted, hands spread wide in order to find something. W'Kabi joined her and started knocking on the wall.
"There must be something here. Something hollow and…" Knock, knock. "There," W'Kabi said. "Try it here."
It was at the lower half of the wall, likely intended for an upside down hand. With some confusion, Okoye pressed the lens of the camera device to that suspected hand-scan portion of the wall. There were blinks when they heard gears turning. The prism chimed, once in a pitch that was unmistakably synthetic. The wall must have been scanning for the hand. Okay, great. The gears stopped turning.
Step one was done. Next was the pupil scan. Was it the same location?
"No, if the hand is down here and the king has to stand, then…" Okoye smartly put herself in the position of the king. After three knocks on the wall, she suspected she found the pupil scanner and put the device to it. It worked. They heard gears turning.
"How old is this mechanism?" W'Kabi muttered. "Did the kings of the old age really have this kind of technology?"
Okoye snorted. "Seems so, and it seems like they were interested in hoarding it."
Not anymore.
The wall quivered. A seam appeared. Stone split noiselessly down the middle. Cold air spilled out from the darkness beyond.
The secret path revealed itself.
Okoye walked ahead, spear drawn, shoulders tight. The husband went in next. Between the two, Okoye was the stronger fighter by far. The passage was narrow and low, carved long ago; the ceiling sloped like the inside of a ribcage. Bioluminescent fungus clung to the rock in faint constellations, glowing in patches of icy blue and violet. Their footsteps echoed, swallowed, then echoed again, as if something in the cave breathed with them.
"This place. No doubt, no one outside the royal line has ever walked in it," W'Kabi said.
Okoye said nothing. Her focus was fixed forward, tracking the faint currents of air, listening for whispers of movement that didn't belong to her or her husband.
The tunnel opened suddenly into a larger cavern, tall and arched. There was a faint mist, and at the center of the cavern, under a hollow shaft of natural moonlight, lay the Heart Garden.
This was not a high-tech facility. The fruits were hosted on a five-foot tall island surrounded by water. The fruits were nestled in a bed of dark, nutrient-rich soil. There were three Heart-Shaped Herbs. Each one pulsed softly.
Okoye exhaled slowly. "There it is…"
"It is time to burn this garden down and end this world of inequality," said W'Kabi.
They descended the stone steps wrapping around the cavern's edge. The mist stirred as they passed, dragging swirls of vapor in their wake. The scent of the herbs rose to meet them. It was strangely sweet, like sap from a tree that had grown in moonlight rather than soil. Like strawberries and metal. It was something that was almost alien in mixture.
At the base of the steps, another barrier awaited them. See, the island and the water, it was contained in a dome of special Vibranium. It was invisible to see with the naked eye and they almost bumped into it. There was the subtle shape of a door and other than that, the dome was blank except for a single circular recess.
"Transparent Vibranium…" W'Kabi snorted. "Didn't Princess Shuri claim it was a new type of Vibranium she discovered?"
Okoye laughed. "Another lie unravelled. Just a formula the royal family has always had but only now decided to unveil."
The Adored One lifted the device again. She pressed the device into the recess. It sank in with a hiss. Purple light spread across the dome in branching lines, like veins filling with blood.
A deep thrum rolled through the cavern. The dome began to part.
"It's time. It's time to burn this all down!" Okoye exclaimed. Her husband's smile matched hers. They were alone. They were almost there. Everything was going as it seemed.
Neither of them noticed the disturbance in the mist behind them. A small ripple of displaced air. An impossible, human-shaped distortion. A breath that was not theirs.
'So…this was what you two wanted. To stop people like me from ever existing, huh?'
Spider-Man stood three paces behind them; unseen, unheard, poised in absolute silence as the entrance to the garden yawned open and the fate of Wakanda shifted with it.
The dome split fully.
Okoye and W'Kabi should have looked back.