Black Panther: Rise of the Princess (COMPLETE)

Chapter 34: Shuri

To her credit, Agent Raven was extremely polite and patient. Having never met her, I could not determine much else about her, but Peter trusted her, I was willing to give her a chance. I made our message extremely vague, which probably confused the poor SHIELD agent, but she assured me that she understood.

"I am well aware of the secrecy concerning international affairs," she explained. "It does not mean that I can't pass a message along, though."

"Just let him know that we will get into contact with him later, and we want to discuss his condition," I repeated.

"Understood, your Highness," Raven responded.

I ended the call, hoping it would not appear to be rude to her. Tossing the cell phone back to Peter, I asked, "When did you meet her?"

He stuffed it back into his bag, which was lying in the corner of the ship. "On the same mission we found out about the cyborgs. She's pretty young, but somehow she knows what she's doing."

"So long as she is not HYDRA, I can accept her age," I responded. "One hour until we arrive back home."

Peter deactivated his suit and laid down on the seating surrounding the side. "It feels like I got here a week ago. Was it really only yesterday?"

I sat next to him with a tablet in my hands. "About 26 hours ago," I confirmed, "but a lot has happened since then."

"Yeah, no kidding. You showed me the lab, the parade, and then the float, then we had to clean up and I fell asleep. We woke up, went to the palace, you became a Panther, we went to Stockhol-"

"I remember what happened."

"I'm just going through the visit!" He complained. "What's wrong with that?"

I shook my head. "Nothing, I guess, but it is not necessary."

He rolled his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. "All we have left is to find this spy, and you've done it."

"'You've'?"

"As in you and your country. Your brother, Okoye, everyone else..."

"Did you forget the part where you helped evacuate people from the parade? Or the street fight in Stockholm? Or have you already forgotten about the base? Who broke into their system?"

"You did."

"I got us access, you hacked into it."

"Oh, like you couldn't have done it if I wasn't here?"

"You are the reason we even tried to infiltrate the base, Peter," I insisted. "Yes, I got us in, but what good would that have done anyone if you had not convinced me to?"

He smiled up at me. "It's called teamwork. Everyone does their part, whatever that part is. Doesn't have to be the most important part, you just gotta help somebody."

I side-eyed him, opening my tablet. "What would an American vigilante know about teamwork?"

"Hey, not cool." Peter reached above his head and punched my leg. "I did go to public high school, you don't graduate without doing a couple group projects. Besides, there are such things as group missions. How do you think we found out about your vibranium in the first place?"

I shrugged. "You did mention that. The Avengers do seem like a slightly dysfunctional group, though."

He snorted. "Tell me about it. Hopefully that changes soon."

"How? They've already done so much the way they are, why would they change now?" I started scrolling through the projects on my tablet, trying to ignore the cloning file for now. "Unless you started over with an entire new team, I suppose."

"Mm hmm," he murmured, before sitting up. "Do you have a pillow or something? This is hurting my neck."

I laughed, pulling one off a nearby shelf. "Here, help yourself." I smacked him with it before throwing it at his face.

"Still don't get how your stuff is so comfortable," he commented. "I swear, it's insane. I might smuggle a blanket or something out when I leave."

"Blame colonization," I told him. "Why do you think we kept ourselves isolated for so long?"

"So stuff like this wouldn't happen?"

"Exactly." I leaned back on the seat, opening my file for my favorite patterns. I could start looking at them now while we were flying home.

The rest of the trip was spent in quiet, but thankfully not the awkward silence I hated so much. Comfortable silence, like right now, was golden, especially for someone like me, who worked best in still environments. I did not like muted places, where it felt like everything was dead, but the hum of the engine, for example, was a perfect background filler. It was just enough to let your mind roam. I think Peter might have fallen asleep.

I decided to run through ideas for my suit. Normally, I kept T'Challa's suits plain and simple, with just a touch of tradition to decorate some of the seams. My suit, though, ought to reflect the person I am, as his does. The blasters on the wrist were a perfect start, but my strength was innovation, and the whole suit could use a little bit of it. A few subtle details would pave the way, and more could come later, when I had access to my whole lab.

The ship landed right on time, and I had to shake Peter awake to get him moving again. We headed straight to the lab, ready to find our spy. The sooner we found out who had betrayed Wakanda, the less time they would have to harm more people.

It took a while to dig through the recordings over the past five years, but we finally found the file containing the security footage from the Infinity War. There were several hours where the lab was completely empty, and immediately after that, hundreds of people swarmed in through the doors, most of whom were injured. Steve Rogers' body was among the casualties.

Peter shivered at my side. "I'm glad that's all over with. I hated that day."

"I doubt there was a person who did not," I assured him. "Here, he's in one of the medical wards."

We began to track his corpse through our footage, but after a few seconds, a low, rhythmic buzzing distracted me.

"None of my gear vibrates like that," I thought out loud, and Peter started patting the pockets of his sweatshirt.

"My phone is....in my bag, probably." He walked over, and sure enough, he was receiving a call. "It's just Raven again, probably checking in." He answered the call, but I waited, just in case.

"Hey, did you make contact with Steve?" He asked, but after a moment, his face hardened and he looked at me. 'Trouble,' he mouthed. He put the phone on speaker.

"Are both of you listening?" Raven asked, her voice echoing through the lab.

I nodded, even though it was just an audio call. "No one else is here, the room is secure."

"Good, because eleven unregistered gunships are converging on your country, and I don't believe you want them to."