November 1, 20XX — FORTUNOV HOTEL, ROOM 1007
Room 1007 was dim when King T'Challa entered it. The curtains were drawn. Delhi itself was muted behind thin glass.
At this time, there was an auction going on down below. But that was not important.
What was important was that King T'Challa of Wakanda entered alongside two male guards. Posed with the might of the Super Soldier, the king personally closed the door. His guards went into their proper places, one guarding the door and the other remaining by his side. Another man stood at the center of the living room, pouring whiskey into two crystal tumblers. He didn't turn around.
"...I presume this visit isn't for old time's sake."
"No," the king replied. They did not speak in English. They spoke Wakandan.
T'Challa approached him slowly. He wore no royal armor, only a tailored coat expected of a man at an auction. He pulled off his sunglasses. His brows were furrowed deep.
The blackmailer was a solemn warrior and noticeably lean. Very slender and very sharply defined, broad cheekbones framing a squared jaw, with eyes that held a steady intensity. Close-cropped hair emphasized the silver markings etched along his cheek.
A heavy cloak rested across his shoulders. Everything about him, from the textured armor to the steady fire behind his gaze, made him appear as a protector shaped by tradition and hardened by experience.
He was W'Kabi. He was King T'Challa's old friend. He was the friend. He was the blackmailer.
This was where it all began.
W'Kabi turned at last, glass in hand, wearing the faintest smile. A smile that did not reach his eyes.
"Then can I greet you as king?"
"No, W'Kabi," T'Challa answered. "Sit."
They sat like men playing chess, a table between them, tension like a taut string stretched from one heart to the other.
T'Challa leaned forward. "I will speak plainly. Peggy Carter came to me with receipts. Payments. Visits. Communications. The Fortunov Hotel. It is here that you—" He pointed a finger, flat and accusatory. "...have been leaking information to our allies and enemies. You have been meeting someone here regularly."
T'Challa watched W'Kabi's face, looking for the slightest flicker of guilt. There was none. W'Kabi gently swirled his whiskey, the amber liquid catching the light.
"And you came here yourself," W'Kabi murmured, "instead of sending your war dogs."
"I wished to believe you innocent," T'Challa said. "I hoped you would explain."
W'Kabi chuckled. "Explain? You sound like my king again. Not my friend."
The words stung. T'Challa felt it, but he did not react. The king reached into his coat and tossed a small folder onto the table. The papers inside slid partly free: a printed receipt, a timestamp, a photograph from the hotel's lobby archives.
W'Kabi glanced down at it.
"You think the monarchy is threatened," T'Challa said. "Why? Why betray me, my friend? Why attempt to blackmail me? When you know you are completely outmatched here?"
W'Kabi said nothing. The silence itself was telling.
T'Challa exhaled, steadying his voice.
"Your wife, Okoye, has served Wakanda faithfully for decades. A general. A leader. A warrior without peer. And you…" He paused. "You once believed in me. In us. In the throne."
"I believed in Wakanda," W'Kabi corrected, his voice rising. "That is not the same thing."
One of T'Challa's guards shifted as a silent threat. T'Challa folded his hands.
"I know you have been gathering information on me and my family, personal and otherwise."
W'Kabi tilted his head, almost as if amused. "What kind?"
"You know what. Details on my palace. Details on me and on my sister."
"Oh yes. Did you know beforehand that Princess Shuri slept with an American? Before the blackmail?"
"...."
"You planned to marry her off, no? You're lucky I sent them to you now. Imagine if I published them in six months time. All I'd have to do is change the dates and the whole world will think that the princess of Wakanda is a cheating whore."
T'Challa snarled. "You have no honour, W'Kabi."
"Honour." he repeated. "Brother, you make it sound like I am running a tabloid or trying to extort. You did read my blackmail letters. What were my demands?"
"...."
"I am trying to save our nation, T'Challa."
"You do not save Wakanda by dismantling her foundations."
"Perhaps her foundations are the problem."
T'Challa's jaw tightened. "Enough of this. Tell me who you are working with. Tell me who convinced you to—"
W'Kabi laughed before the question finished. "You still think someone convinced me? That I needed someone to whisper in my ear? Do you truly think me so stupid, T'Challa?" He leaned back in the chair. "The world changes. Monarchies crumble. Democracies fail. Empires end. And it should change. But Wakanda—Wakanda clings to the past as if tradition were a lifeline instead of a chain." He sipped his whiskey. "You don't understand. You never have. You simply can't because you are complacent. Naturally so, as you benefit the most from it. You don't care that there is still poverty in our country. For you at this point, it's a number. All of us, we're just tools and numbers."
"That is not—"
"Do you know what happened to our agriculture sector after you made your vision come true? After the government accepted that we should follow the western style of farming? It put millions out of jobs. Farming is now completely automated—and worse? It is run by the elites. Not the farmers of old. Their lands got taken and sanctioned by your government. Ahh, but it doesn't matter, does it? Everything is more convenient."
"I did what I had to do to make Wakanda a superpower."
"I wouldn't have cared, to be honest, if you had at least let those people keep their own land. But you didn't. You and your elite friends in the government took it. So they can take the cake, eat it, and then back you whenever you require support for a bill."
T'Challa did not back down. "If you're asking me if I regret it…no. This is what it means to be king."
"Exactly!" His eyes widened and W'Kabi pointed at the king. At what he was. "Exactly! Exactly! Look at America! Look at the Netherlands! The farmers are actually the people who are from there! They are what they are! They are tradition! They are the working people!"
"You simplify what I've done and inject your own beliefs. You're a fool."
"Am I? What about the mining industry? Hm? Dozens of towns in Wakanda were quite literally built around mines and the majority of the working male population worked in the mine from the day they left school until the day they retired. These wages then supported all of the pubs, shops, and women in those towns. And your father, King T'Chaka, in the nineties decided to take over the industry with cutting-edge technology and left all of the workers unemployed with no alternate employment available. That had the wonderful effect of other businesses in the towns closing because their customers no longer had any disposable income. Let me blunt here: it fucked a lot of people up. Divorces and suicide—imagine how you would feel if your well paid job which you had done for forty years was suddenly taken away? You had a mortgage, a car and a family to pay for, and you had no transferable skills, and if you found a job, you were competing with half the town to get it. Ahh, but the king is looking out for the future. He is trying to make our cities strong."
"...when did you start to care?"
"Did you really just ask me?" There was full-on disgust on W'Kabi. "You know. And you shouldn't care either."
W'Kabi was the result of an affair. His father cheated on his wife for a servant and that servant raised W'Kabi for the first ten years of his life. On his eleventh birthday, his mother passed away. A DNA test was conducted to find the father, and by this point, his father's wife had also passed. By forging some documents, the wealthy father took W'Kabi in and made him the man he was today.
But those first ten years of his life were never forgotten.
The sneer on his face could have been more hurtful. "Yes. Yes, of course. I see." T'Challa inhaled slowly. "And now you wish for total abdication of the throne. Of nobility. I'm sorry to say, old friend, but that will not happen. Not today when there is so much to do. Maybe…maybe in some decades."
W'Kabi snorted, having expected this response.
T'Challa pursed his lips. "Do not make me punish you. Do not make me punish your wife."
A flicker of something—fear, maybe grief—crossed W'Kabi's eyes. But it vanished just as quickly.
"My wife is loyal," W'Kabi said. "More loyal than you know."
"I have decided," T'Challa continued, "to keep this a private matter. You and I… our bond is old. I owe our fathers that. I owe us that." He leaned in. "Give me the name of the one you serve, and I will protect your family."
W'Kabi's smile faded.
"You want the name? The one who convinced me Wakanda no longer needs a king?"
W'Kabi leaned forward, voice low and cold.
"It was the Devil."
T'Challa blinked, momentarily thrown. "The Devil?"
"I needed a plan and he helped me execute it. He and I both saw that the throne—your throne—has rotted. And he promised me a future for Wakanda—one without a king. One who does not allow complacency and does not forgot."
T'Challa rose abruptly. "Enough. You are speaking treason."
"Truth often sounds like treason to kings."
The lone guards by T'Challa's side stepped forward and cocked his pistol at him. He was a professional.
W'Kabi remained perfectly still.
"I have been merciful," T'Challa said. "Do not make me regret it."
W'Kabi sighed… sadly.
"I am sorry," he said softly. "I truly am."
T'Challa opened his mouth to speak, but a sharp metallic click froze the room. The closet door opened. The bathroom door opened. The door behind him opened.
The dark gleam of guns were unveiled and the two guards with T'Challa were suddenly on the defensive—and then defeated by numbers. The guard at the door was dealt with a needle injection, collapsing. Only one guard was left and he did not know whether to remove his aim from W'Kabi. All of this, it didn't make sense. The Dora Milaje were the last line of defence, not the enemy.
It rattled him. It rattled the king.
Then Okoye walked in, followed by the Dora Milaje. Not two or three, nearly the whole of them. Spears poised and faces cold.
"Okoye," King T'Challa called out, demanding. "What is this?"
His general—his most trusted warrior, the woman he once said embodied the spirit of Wakanda—had a pistol aimed at the guard who was aiming at her husband. They were completely outnumbered.
"Your majesty," Okoye said. Not with respect. Not with love.
With condemnation.
"It is time."
T'Challa stared at her, uncomprehending.
"Time?" he repeated. "For what?"
"To end the era of kings."
The sole guard made a decision to move away from W'Kabi and press his back to T'Challa's. The coup was one-sided, however. They were outnumbered, outmatched, and unprepared.
Okoye looked at W'Kabi and the whole truth revealed itself.
Okoye smiled. "You see, I was the one who reached out to the Devil. I was the one who began this. My husband merely agreed."
T'Challa looked as though he had been struck.
"You…" He looked between them. Husband and wife, colluding together. "How…why…Okoye, why?"
"Because you failed Wakanda," she said simply.
"That is not your decision to make."
"It is," Okoye corrected. "You allowed our society to advance at the cost of our dignity. At the cost of allowing Americans to step into our lands. Our culture has become a tourist destination for these people." She stepped closer, her eyes burning. "And I know what I was doing was correct after we sent the blackmail and rather than ask us, your Dora Milaje, you asked outsiders for help. Peggy Carter. A foreigner. A dying one."
"...."
"We need you'd come here—just as we know you promised her the Heart-Shaped Herb. You were willing to trade our sacred birthright for your secrets."
T'Challa froze. Peggy had given him her word. The matter was discreet. The investigation quiet. When Peggy Carter informed him of her conclusions, that it was W'Kabi that was responsible for the blackmail photos, he decided to send Okoye and half of the Dora Milaje elsewhere for this. The other half were supposed to be here.
The king was too conceited. They were all compromised.
For how long?
He didn't have time to ask.
Okoye flicked her wrist.
The Dora Milaje moved like a single creature and there was a short-lived fight. T'Challa's one and only guard was disarmed in half a second. He tried to shoot, only to be grabbed and to be tasered by a spear. These spears could be folded to look like an ordinary knife. They were flexible and quick to end the battle.
T'Challa tried to properly fight. He was strong, enhanced by the recent Heart-shaped Herb and trained from birth, but twenty warriors trained to perfection were twenty too many. A blow struck his spine. Another his throat. Two women grabbed him by the arms, seizing him. He tried to swing, only to be tased. Someone struck his knee. His vision went black. He dropped, gasping.
When he looked up, Okoye loomed over him.
"You are no longer fit to rule."
T'Challa spat blood onto the carpet. "You betray your king."
Okoye snorted and nodded to two Dora. They seized T'Challa, stripping him of his coat, his shirt, his rings. His superhuman strength would have stopped this entirely, if not for the cuffs they put on him.
"Okoye!" he snarled. "This is madness! The people will never—"
"They will know you as a traitor. That is all."
She turned to Teela, a young Dora Milaje warrior with fierce eyes and a proud stance.
Teela stepped forward without hesitation. "I know my role. For Wakanda."
Okoye handed her an AK-47, the very kind of foreign weapon Wakanda despised. A relic of weaker nations.
Teela held it tightly.
T'Challa stared at her. "Teela, don't—"
She smiled sadly. "For Wakanda."
Okoye nodded.
The shot rang out like thunder in the small room. Teela collapsed instantly, clutching her lung, blood seeping through her armor.
W'Kabi caught her before she hit the floor, lowering her gently.
"Y-you…you fools…you bastards…you plan to frame me for this!?"
T'Challa's rage was eerily acknowledged. "She understood the cost," Okoye said. "A martyr written into history."
T'Challa watched, horrified.
"You will frame me," he whispered. "For this. My own women…!"
"For everything," Okoye confirmed.
She signaled again. A Dora approached with a medical injector—thin as a pen, sharp as a needle.
She jammed it into T'Challa's thigh. He snarled but could not break free. The needle filled with his blood. Okoye watched until the vial turned fully crimson.
"This will ensure Wakanda has no heir from you," she said coldly. "Your line ends tonight."
That was the last thing T'Challa heard before he was tased for a whole thirty seconds and passed out. They placed him on the couch, nude and incriminated. They undid his cuffs. They even brushed on wrist and ankles to make sure the marks were harder to see. It was well-staged.
Teela dying by the door.
Blood on the carpet.
A staged tragedy.
A coup disguised as a stumble.
The Dora Milaje exited without looking back.
…
…
…
The Dora Milaje had not known that Peggy Carter was hot on their trail.
Room 1009, directly across from the carnage of 1007, had been reserved under false foreign diplomatic credentials. It looked mundane but inside the air was razor-tight, tense with four SHIELD operatives listening in.
Director Peggy Carter stood with her weight subtly leaned against her cane. At over a hundred years old, she naturally looked frail. The variants of serums that she took prolonged her life and made her bones durable, her organs stubborn, but she no longer had the flexibility or explosiveness of youth. One brown eye sharp, the other hidden behind an eyepatch.
Agent Blade checked his weapons. Agent Coulson triple-confirmed what they heard inside. The two other agents, you see, were seated and wearing headphones. Listening through an audio-program via the security cameras in the hallway. The Dora Milaje had secured the room itself and had hacked the cameras. The former was true, the latter was not. Peggy's agents had outhacked the Dora Milaje.
"They are gone," said the SHIELD agent with the headphones. "Should we proceed, Director?"
Everyone watched Peggy for the signal.
Agent Shadowcat—Rogue—had been halfheartedly patrolling and listening. She was not a thinker. She was a wild animal that was pointed to battle. "I smell blood."
"Carter," Blade said loudly, "you heard what they said. There was a gunshot. The walls here might have blocked 'em, but there's no denying what happened. So what are we waiting for? The king could be dead."
Peggy raised a trembling but decisive hand. "Wait. At any moment now, the Dora Milaje will call someone. Intercept that call."
They waited. There was indeed a call and they safely intercepted. The Dora Milaje pretended to be a worker of the hotel and informed one of Kristoff Vernard's attendants that his room was cleaned for whenever he wished to return.
"I see. This is their strategy, to have Kristoff Vernard see the body and stir up the political climate. Well…we can't let that happen, can we?" Director Carter put both hands on her cane. "Shall we?"
Rogue opened the door to 1009 and crossed the hallway swiftly to check for dangers. Once everything was safe, the Director was allowed through. Agent Blade and Coulson followed behind her and eased the door open.
Room 1007 smelled of blood and gunpowder. And betrayal. The metallic reek hit them immediately.
There on the carpet lay Teela, a Dora Milaje warrior, chest torn open by a brutal gunshot wound. King T'Challa lay unconscious on the chair behind her: nude, bruised, wrists and ankles wiped with make-up.
King Peggy inhaled sharply. Even after all she'd been through, after running SHIELD for decades, seeing a king left naked and helpless struck her with a mild amount of surprise.
"Coulson," she ordered softly, "the weapon."
Coulson knelt by the corpse, grimacing at the grisly wound. He pried loose the AK-style rifle from T'Challa's limp hand. The Dora Milaje had planted it there moments earlier.
"It's primed," Coulson announced. "And obviously with the king's fingerprints."
Peggy's remaining eye hardened.
"Frame job. Well done, but fast. They expected discovery for another hour."
Her cane clicked once on the floor.
"Blade," she continued, "take Teela. You and Coulson move her down to room 907. Drop her there, leave the rifle. I don't want any connection between these events."
Coulson gave her a grim nod. "And what about King T'Challa?"
"I'll handle the king. Now move. And be silent."
Coulson sighed. "Without the usual team, I'll need to use the EMP to disable the cameras."
"Then do it," Carter snapped. "Don't ask for my permission. This is India, load shedding happens all the time anyway. It won't raise a brow. Take Blade with you."
The assigned agents, Blade and Coulson carefully lifted Teela's corpse and began dragging it toward the hallway. At this point, it was Agent Shadowcat and two other agents with Peggy. Certainly, she was not unprotected. She did not relax, however.
Peggy turned back toward the king. His chest rose and fell unsteadily. She crouched beside him, her joints protesting, and brought out a small handheld scanner: a state-of-the-art SHIELD spy device that was disguised as a traditional black compact camera. It copied and kept records of an individual's retinal, fingerprints, and blood genetics, and uploaded it onto a private server. On the compact camera, aside from the natural features of a camera like a screen and lens, was an extendable needle for blood extraction at the side.
That was the first thing the Director of SHIELD did: inject the needle and draw out the king's blood. T'Challa did not wake up either and the date was instantly uploaded to the server room. Peggy allowed herself the faintest breath of triumph.
This was it. This was her entrance to the future she'd fought her whole life for.
To reach the Heart-Shaped Herb Garden, one needed a member of the royal family's biometric authority. And no, saliva was not one of them. It was the pupils, fingerprints, and blood. The king promised her a fruit for the information regarding blackmail. To keep her quiet.
Ha. As if the king would do such a thing. She did not believe him.
She leaned forward, pressing the scanner directly to his his left eye. Left eye: done. Right eye: done. Now, the fingers...
"Almost, Your Majesty," Peggy said, smirking. "Almost."
That was when the lights died. The entire hotel went black.
A complete EMP pulse had just been triggered from Coulson's device, wiping the cameras and sensors so the SHIELD agents could move Teela without detection. But the EMP also plunged them into total darkness.
"I can't see shit," Rogue remarked loudly. "What the hell are we supposed to do?"
Two seconds later and Peggy ignited a flashlight. "Calm down. And use your training and nose."
"Do I look like Wolverine to you? I hate having a strong nose, thank you very much."
Peggy grunted. "You are most certainly not Wolverine." She missed him. She was much more manageable than this loudmouth.
Everything was going to go as it was supposed to. In ten seconds, they would be out and the mission would be over. Using her own flashlight, Shadowcat went over to the largest window. He hummed, opening it and smelling the open air. She grimaced. "Smells like shit of the rich…"
In that beat, three figures dropped from the ceiling vents. The Dora Milaje had returned, led by Okoye. The EMP had instantly set them off and made them return. Although just in case, they decided to use the vents.
It worked.
"Director Carter." Okoye's voice and being was distorted through night-vision tech. "You've gotten too old."
Peggy froze when she felt a gun press against her. She could not see them. She had no night-vision. No enhanced senses. No youth. The gun clicked. Peggy opened her mouth—
BANG.
The bullet punched straight through her back and tore out through her heart. Her cane clattered to the floor and Peggy Carter folded inward like a punctured drum.
She died instantly.
Agent Shadowcat heard the gunshot and spun around. "Hey, what the—?!—"
Feet thundered toward her.
The SHIELD agent backed up, claws forming reflexively, but everything was pitch black. Sight useless. Smell drowning in the smell of smoke, blood, and gunpowder. The situation was harrowing and it was going to get worse.
A spear slashed past her ear. She ducked. Another hit her ribs. Her healing factor kicked in and she pained through it. But she couldn't defend properly blind, not against elite warriors with training beyond any SHIELD simulation.
A hand struck her throat.
Another hooked her arm.
A third and fourth tackled her waist.
They coordinated like a hive, moving as one.
"Get—off—!" Rogue snarled, swinging blindly. Her fist connected with something—she felt the crunch of ribs and warm blood splatter across her knuckles.
That was one. One Dora hissed in pain. But there were too many and Rogue just could not see.
A foot drove into her gut, knocking the wind out of her. Another blow hammered her spine. A third clipped her temple, sending her staggering backward.
Then a final shove launched her through the window she had opened. It was like she was being crammed through the window and one last kick ended her resistance. Rogue fell out into the open night air—down, down, nine stories…
This was how her story ended. That was how Rogue hit her head and was knocked unconscious.
"Where's Teela?"
"They must have removed her from here…"
"How will we frame him otherwise?"
It was only the Dora Milaje now. They were whispering and discussing their next mode of action. Time was of the essence and there was not much remaining. Okoye approached the fallen SHIELD Director's corpse. She stared down at the legendary woman who had survived HYDRA, wars, coups, and nearly a century of enemies.
"Hmph. I suppose you will do, Peggy Carter. Your death will force the hand of the international community. It's not what I had in mind but…it will have to do."
"Prime Minister Kristoff and Ambassador Yvan are arriving! Both are at the foyer waiting for the elevator to take them up!" one of the Dora Milaje announced through the earpiece. "Okoye and everyone in Room 1007, please leave!"
Okoye started walking away. "We can't linger, it seems. Hrm. He will likely take his time but still. I prefer for Minister Kristoff to see this scene naturally."
The door was opened and the Dora Milaje poured out. Okoye was the last to leave, eyeing the terribly set-up crime scene. If only they had more time…
"Oh well."
She closed the door to Room 1007.
At this precise moment, Agent Blade and Coulson successfully placed Teela in Room 907. Including the original weapon that killed Teela, the AK-47.
Twenty minutes later, Prime Minister Vernard, Ambassador Yvan, and three body guards arrived to relax after getting what they needed from the auction. They entered the room and saw the body.
Peggy Carter's corpse lay on the carpet, blood pooled beneath her sternum. King T'Challa sprawled nude and unconscious on the bed. Shattered window.
Following the initial, the crime scene was promptly cleaned up. One guard later attempting to retrieve camera footage and wipe out the Prime Minster's name in all this. A plan was hatched in the matter of minutes and a single name was uttered in order to save face:
"Felicia Hardy."