The Ambassador's Daughter

Chapter 8

The next morning, dressed as a respectable dignitary, in a skirt and matching blazer, Louise joined her parents for breakfast. "So, Dad," She began tentatively, "You have lifted my sentence?"

The ambassador looked at her over the top of his American newspaper. "Yes, dear. You have your phone back, don't you?" Louise lifted the phone as evidence that she did, indeed, have it back.

"Does this mean I can have my car privileges returned?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound too hopeful. She was going for mildly petulant. She knew she'd failed as soon as she looked at her father. He seemed to be gloating.

"Yes, my dear, you can once again go traipsing around Wakanda without supervision." Ambassador Brandt smiled coldly, obviously pleased with himself. Louise nodded and turned back to her toast. She didn't even care that she felt like her father had her just where he wanted her. She was once again free to see her friends.

Later that morning, Louise pulled up in front of the palace and nearly ran through the doors into her sanctuary. She had called Steve when she was well away from the Mansion to let him and T'Challa know she was coming back. Thanks to her tip, he was waiting for her inside. He hugged her tightly in welcome. "Steve!" she gasped, "Can't breathe!" He released her looking sheepish.

"Sorry, but I didn't realise how much I'd miss you. You were gone way too long."

"Not by choice. It sucks being held captive in your own home." Louise huffed, stalking through the halls up to Bucky's room. "And as far as I can see, the only reason he did it was to tap my phone. That makes it even harder to take. I mean, who does that to their own child? Doesn't that go against the Geneva Convention or--Whoa!" She'd just opened the door and found the room almost completely changed. Her chair and table were still there, but they had been moved over to a corner. The space where they had once stood, was now filled with an empty hospital bed. The cryo chamber stood next to the bed with more equipment that beeped and whirred than she remembered. Three doctors in addition to Doctor Mang'Tan were crowded around taking notes and checking flashing lights.

T'Challa stood by Louise's chair. When she and Steve entered, T'Challa moved quickly and quietly to her side. Louise could see that he had missed her, too, but being a king, he had to hold back his welcome somewhat more than Steve did. T'Challa merely nodded and smiled at her. Three of them moved towards the hall where they could speak without being interrupted or overheard.

Louise quickly summarised the details of her grounding. "In short, I need an identical copy of this phone, minus the tap, so that my dad doesn't get suspicious and also so that I can talk to you and Steve without the ambassador getting his hands on any information he shouldn't." She sighed in frustration, "However, I'm positive that Dad knows I came to the palace today, and that he also has a trace on my phone, so I can't go replace my own phone. I really can't stand that man right now!" T'Challa took her phone from her hand and examined it.

"Why not just take the tap out of this phone?" He asked.

"Because," Louise responded sullenly, "One, I can't remove the tap without leaving me a worthless phone, and two I don't know what else he might have done to it. I need a clean phone. But it has to look like this one so my dad doesn't get wise that I got wise to him. Hopefully that'll throw him off long enough for us to wake up Bucky and get everything settled that way."

"Well, this sounds like you will be needing help getting a new phone." T'Challa said, turning her phone over in his hand. "I will send one of my servants to get you a copy of this phone."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Louise said, "Now, you guys need to catch me up on what's going on in there," She jabbed her thumb towards the door, "What's with the bed? Are we really that close to waking Bucky up?"

Steve shook his head. "No. Well, we are close to being ready to wake him up, but he doesn't have an arm, yet. T'Challa hasn't got the engineers together yet."

"Or enough vibranium. It is difficult to mine and the last time the Avengers were in Wakanda, they halted mining for quite some time." Steve did not look ashamed. Instead he looked uncomfortable, as if being reminded of that last trip was deeply upsetting. Louise decided to move the subject along.

"So, when do you think we can get engineers out here? Do we have a plan for the arm? Usual prosthetics are not as advanced as Bucky's arm used to be. It might be very difficult to reproduce a copy of the arm without the original prosthetic."

"I have sent for the top engineers in the country." T'Challa replied, "I was hoping they would be here by now, but without the vibranium, it hardly matters if they are here yet or not. They will be working with the doctors to produce a fully functional prosthetic like the one he lost in Romania."

Louise nodded. "So, we're going to wait until he has an arm before we bring him out of cryo?"

"Yeah," Steve said, "I think it will be kind of traumatic to bring him out, I don't want to have to adjust to waking up with the feeling of being incomplete."

"Alright, then we need to talk about my role. Because I can guarantee that my Dad is going to be restricting my car privileges again once he realises that I'm not using my actual phone. I think it will be best if I keep my phone as is for a while and use it as little as possible, so that Dad doesn't get suspicious too quickly. I will use it less and less building up to the point when I get a new phone, so that when I do get the new phone, he won't notice the sudden drop in use."

"That's a good plan, Louise," Steve agreed, "I hope it works. How bad will it be if and when he finds out you switched phones?"

Louise shuddered. "If the last two weeks are any indication, it could be quite brutal." She sighed and rubbed her eyes, remembering the last two weeks made her anxious and uncomfortable. She did not like being a prisoner in her own home, having every outing questioned and chaperoned, and to have her every communication read and overheard, it was making her jumpy.

Steve seemed to read her thoughts. He reached out and gently rubbed her arm, "It is ok, Louise. We will figure it out together. Even if this whole thing doesn't work out the way we want, you're still my friend, and I take care of my friends." Louise nodded. His words were comforting, but she couldn't quite shake to nagging fear in the back of her mind.

T'Challa agreed, "Miss Louise, you are more than an ambassador's daughter in this palace. Here you will be safe. You are my friend, too." Louise smiled at him and turned back to the room.

"Will it be possible to shoo the doctors out for a bit. I've been away for a long time. Bucky needs to hear my voice again." T'Challa led her back to Bucky's room. He opened the door and ordered the doctors out. They hurried to comply. Louise thanked them as they scurried passed her. When the doctors left Louise turned to Steve and T'Challa. "You guys, too. We need to be alone for a bit."

Steve looked disappointed, so did T'Challa, but they nodded and left the room, pulling the door closed behind them. Louise climbed into the bed and laid down on her side, facing the cryo chamber. Bucky really was handsome, Louise decided. When she'd first "met" Bucky, she didn't particularly care for his long hair and scruff, but the more time she spent looking at him, the more attractive she found him, scruff and all.

"I'm back," She said, "I'm sorry I've been away for so long. My dad grounded me after my last visit. Isn't that the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard?" She paused, thinking about Bucky's life and she smiled at herself, "Alright, maybe it's not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard. But how many twenty-one year olds do you know who get grounded by their parents. You know what the worst part of this whole thing is? Yeah, worse than the grounding, worse than the tap on my phone, worse than being kept away from here. Not being able to tell my parents why I broke curfew. You know, lots of people have great open relationships with their parents. I feel like that is an impossibility with my parents. My dad tapped my phone! How can you tell someone like that anything? Of course, maybe if I told my parents stuff he wouldn't have had to tap my phone? I don't know."

When Steve went to find Louise an hour later, he found her curled up facing Bucky's chamber sound asleep. Steve woke her up, even though he would rather have let her sleep. "Louise, if you don't leave now, you'll miss your curfew. And we don't need that again." Louise nodded groggily and slipped of the bed. Steve guided her down the hall and down to her car. By the time she got in she was awake enough to thank Steve and promise to come back in a couple of days.