[Leipzig AU] good for trouble

[from_the_outside]

Busan glitters like a disco ball in the night, and no one gives them a second glance as they stroll through the fish market, Sharon in her white dress on Ross's arm, the rest of the team behind them. "Sophia," she says, warmly, and exchanges air kisses with the woman, her pink visor and plastic apron both bright. She knows to expect them, and after she pats Sharon fondly on the cheek, she nods them through.

They spread out through the casino, the team's voices low in her ear. She stays by Ross, playing the part of arm candy, applauding when he wins and consoling him when he loses.

There's no sign of Klaue yet, and the metal briefcase full of diamonds stays locked to the wrist of one of the other agents. "I'm going to get a drink," Sharon murmurs to Ross, and makes her way through the crowd to the bar. 

The martinis here are fine, but not as good as Nat's.

Comments

[from_the_outside]

People are screaming and yelling as dust billows into the rooms. The one-way glass fractures and then explodes inward as a man in a tribal mask pushes in, firing bursts of bullets from a semi-automatic weapon nudged against his shoulder.

There's no time to think. She sees Nakia stand and the man move forward and is in motion in the next heartbeat. "Get down!" Sharon yells, and tackles her friend as the man squeezes off another scattering round of bullets. She feels a hand push, hard, between her shoulderblades as they drop, but it's not until they hit the floor and she finds she can't get up again that she realizes she's been shot.

[marvel_npc]

"Hold still," she murmurs, cradling her friend across her lap. Sharon has very likely just saved her life, and been badly injured in the process.

Ross is shouting orders, sending the rest of his team running, and T'Challa has vanished through the wall. Okoye gives Nakia a searching look and runs after him as Ross drops down by her side.

"How bad is she?" he demands. "Bad," Nakia murmurs, pulling Sharon's ripped shirt aside to reveal the horrific wound in her spine. "Very bad."

[from_the_outside]

Pain is setting in, along with a horrifying numbness in her arms and legs and torso. It's all she can do to keep breathing, to try and push away the gray film that's trying to push across her vision.

Sharon whimpers, low, her breathing rough and labored, feeling cold all over. She can hear Nakia and Ross talking, but can't tell what they're saying, can't feel Nakia's gentle hands on her back. The fear is a distant thing, coiling up around her, tightening a little more with each terrified gasp for air. The cement floor is cold against her forehead, but she can't lift her head.

She can't do anything.

[marvel_npc]

T'Challa sprints out the door, hot in pursuit – and an invisible hand shoves him back and up and into the wall. As he drops, he sees the masked man lowering his weapon as the van careens back out of the alley, a familiar ring bouncing against his chest on a chain as they vanish.

He stares after them and makes ready to pursue, when he hears Okoye shouting. His General runs out to him, spear at the ready, looking grave. "My King," she says. "Nakia."

Nakia. He'd see her dive to the ground; was she hit, is she hurt? He turns and runs back into the remains of the chaos, then draws to an abrupt halt at the scene before him: Nakia and Ross both kneeling by a wounded Agent Carter. He sinks to his knee next to the woman, her rough gasps for breath scraping across his own heart, and looks at Nakia.

[marvel_npc]

"She just jumped in front of me," she tells T'Challa. Nakia's shifted now to lay Sharon on the floor, hoping to ease her breathing, and is gently cradling her neck and shoulder. There's anguish in her eyes as she looks up at him.

"I don't think she'll make it here. It hit her spine."

Beside them, Ross makes a sound like he's just been punched in the gut. "You hang on, Carter," he orders, trying to keep her grounded to the earth through will alone. "Do you hear me? You hang on, goddammit!"

[marvel_npc]

He meets Nakia's eyes and reads the anguished request in them. Even now, even in this terrible moment, she cannot speak it aloud, but it is clear anyway what she wishes: for them to save this woman, to bring her to the only one who can.

She has helped him before, this Agent Carter, and he knows she is dear to his friend, the Sergeant now left behind in Wakanda, all unknowing. He thinks of how he would feel if this were Nakia, lying here struggling to take each breath, to remain in this world, the one of the living, and a wave of terrible anguish rises in him.

At Ross's order, the woman makes a small whimpering sound that's so much worse than if she hadn't tried to respond at all, and T'Challa reaches out a hand to Nakia, the decision made almost by reflex. "Give me a Kimoyo bead," he says, quiet, and takes the one she offers to him.

He looks to Ross, his free hand up with fingers spread, trying to soothe. "This will stabilize her for now," he murmurs, and gently but firmly pushes the bead into the wound. The woman groans and tenses, then relaxes into unconsciousness as the bead glows gently.

[marvel_npc]

He stares in absolute shock as T'Challa pushes a metal bead into Carter's back. He could swear it glows for a second, violet tendrils of light spreading out from her wound, but there's no mistaking the way her breathing eases, the way her body relaxes.

For a horrifying second he thinks they've lost her. Ross presses shaking fingers to her throat only to find that her heartbeat is slow, but steady.

He looks up at T'Challa. "How?"

[marvel_npc]

He cannot possibly explain, here and now, and not only because of the secrets Wakanda holds. "Give her to us," he says, instead, and holds the other man's gaze with his own intent and worried.

"We can save her."

[marvel_npc]

Ross looks back at him, unable to believe what he's hearing, then tears his glance away to look down at Carter where she lies on the floor, unconscious and unmoving.

She'd been about to die, he knows it. He knows it, and now she's not, through some miracle he doesn't understand.

"Take her," Ross says, roughly, and looks back up at T'Challa. "But I'm coming along."

[marvel_npc]

He hears Okoye's hissed breath. "My King – " she begins, but he shakes his head, sharp and abrupt.

"Would you ask me to leave you?" he asks, in Xhosa, and she subsides. He doesn't have to look at her to see the expression on her face.

He looks instead to Nakia, who nods, minute. "Very well," he says, and gently lifts the unconscious Agent Carter into his arms before he stands, cradling her warm weight against his chest. "Come. There is not much time."

[marvel_npc]

He follows T'Challa, Okoye, and the other woman whose name he still doesn't know as they start purposefully out the door. Ross pauses only long enough to snag the arm of the first agent he finds and snap out a few orders for how to process the scene and report back to him later, that he's seeing Carter to the hospital, and dashes after them.

Nothing makes sense. He ignores that and clings grimly to the present as they make their way to the SUV parked in the next alley over. Ross climbs in the back and helps to brace Carter as T'Challa sets her gently into the car. The other woman climbs in after and does the same, from the other side. Hopefully it's not far to the hospital.

Except they aren't going to a hospital, apparently. Okoye pulls the SUV over just outside the city, beside a large field surrounded by trees, and shuts off the engine.

"Wait," Ross protests. "Wait. Where are we going? You can't just--"

The other woman reaches to touch his wrist, shaking her head at him as both Okoye and T'Challa get out of the car. "Watch," she murmurs. "You will see."

Ross starts to argue, but his mouth drops open when the air outside shimmers and an aircraft appears from out of fucking nowhere, parked in the field.

[marvel_npc]

Nakia hangs back by Ross as T'Challa carefully lifts Sharon out of the car. Her friend is limp in his arms, but breathing, and Nakia comforts herself with the knowledge that if they can just get her back to Wakanda in time, she will be alright.

She has to be.

"Come," she says gently, and sets a hand on Ross's arm. "We will explain on the way. Only come."

Inside the flyer, T'Challa activates a sand table and lays Sharon carefully onto it. Her friend's face is pale, but she did not lose much blood and her breathing, though light, is regular.

[marvel_npc]

Okoye grits her teeth as she watches Ross take up a position at the head of the table, looking down at Agent Carter. She remembers the woman from Berlin, knows that she is close to Sergeant Barnes, that now there are also two others besides Klaue outside Wakanda's borders who have gained knowledge of Wakanda's secrets, but this--

She holds her tongue until she has brought them aloft and set the autopilot on its course, then goes to join them. She speaks only in Xhosa, knowing that Ross will not be able to understand her. Good.

"My king," she starts. "Our mission was to bring back Klaue. We failed. These two are foreign intelligence operatives. How can we possibly justify bringing them into our borders?"

[marvel_npc]

"She took a bullet for me," Nakia says, disbelieving. "And she is my friend. We are just supposed to let her die?"

Ross glances between them, over Sharon's unconscious body, still in a state of shock over everything he's seeing. "What?" he demands. "What are you saying?"

[marvel_npc]

"That was her choice," she snaps at Nakia, then switches to English and turns to Ross.

"I am not speaking to you," she informs him. "I am addressing my king. Be silent and wait your turn."

Okoye turns back to T'Challa. "They are Americans! We are already at odds with their leaders from before, and it is their duty to report back to their country! And as king, it is your duty to protect ours."

[marvel_npc]

"I'm well aware of my duties, General," he says, quiet but edged. He's been standing at Agent Carter's side, looking down at her and seeing not a golden-haired American, but Nakia, silent and still.

"I cannot just let her die, knowing we can save her."

It is hard for a good man to be king, his father had said. Baba, is this what you meant?

[marvel_npc]

Okoye sighs. He will be a good king for Wakanda, she believes that and always has, but these last few weeks have brought difficult times for them all.

"My king," she says again, softer this time. "I will support you in all things. You know that. But you must be ready to answer these questions. I will not be the only one asking them."

She sighs again. "We will be landing at the mountain, I presume?"

[marvel_npc]

"Let me worry about that, General," he says, but it is more gentle as well.

Instead of answering her directly, he switches to English and looks to Ross. "We will take her to my sister," he says, and glances at Nakia. "I must call her, so she can prepare."

[marvel_npc]

"And the Sergeant?" she murmurs - also in English. "He will want to know."

Ross tenses, she notices, and she gives him a sharp look, but the other man does not say anything.

[marvel_npc]

He will – but T'Challa isn't sure of the best way to contact him. "He may be with Shuri," he says.

"If not, we will call him after."

[marvel_npc]

"Your sister? Is your sister a doctor?" Ross wants to know. He's keeping an eye on Carter's breathing, which so far remains steady, but she's far too pale and still.

[marvel_npc]

"Not exactly," T'Challa admits, and lifts his hand to activate another Kimoyo bead.

"Shuri," he says, quietly, and waits for her to respond.

[marvel_npc]

It is late, but only a little late, and besides she is far too excited from the first real trial of the remote driving system to sleep yet, although she had taken pity on Sergeant Barnes and stopped asking him to help her test things half an hour ago. He had been having fun, she believes, but he is still recovering whether he thinks he is or not and she does not want him to overdo.

She has the music turned up in the lab and is dancing from foot to foot as she throws new ideas up into the holographic model. When the call comes through and interrupts the visualization to display an image of her brother instead, Shuri lets out a loud exasperated noise and sticks her tongue out at him.

"Brother! I was designing!" But even as she says it, a closer look at his grave expression and the fact that he is still wearing the Panther habit causes her annoyance to vanish. Shuri waves her hand at the controller and the music goes silent.

"What has happened? What is wrong?"

[marvel_npc]

"There was an incident," he says. It aches to see his sister's brilliance fade into worry, but there is no pretending that the news he has is good. Klaue gone, Agent Carter injured, more outsiders who will learn Wakanda's secrets.

He sends up a silent prayer to Bast to aid him in this hour of need and continues. "Klaue had allies who broke him out of confinement. Agent Carter of the Joint Terrorism Task Force was injured during the attack. She was protecting Nakia."

He waves a hand and sends the data from the flyer's sand table to Shuri so she can view Agent Carter's vitals. "We are bringing her to you."

[marvel_npc]

Her shock is visible. "Klaue escaped?" She would not have thought it possible for that man to evade the custody of her brother and General Okoye.

Shuri brushes it aside for now in favor of calling up the data on a display next to T'Challa's image, and hisses at what she sees. "This broken white girl is very broken," she says, and ignores the strangled noise she hears somewhere off to T'Challa's side. "You should hurry."