[oom] the rules have changed since I learned to play

[from_the_outside]

Five days has never felt so goddamn long. Fortunately, there's a lot to do.

She throws herself into mission prep, spending hours strategizing with Steve and Nakia and T'Challa and Ayo, going over the exit paths Bucky had outlined, discussing their bid, their timing, their plan, their back-up plan, their back-up to the back-up. 

She works with Shuri on the newest iteration of her suit: improved, stab-proof, and locked away inside a chic gold bracelet. It takes a little while for her to get used to how it responds, but after a few hours of testing and adjusting, she can call it into being with a second's thought.

She and Steve have long calls with Fury, going over the intel he's collected on the other guests. There's only one Fury's really concerned about, a representative from the crime-soaked island of Madripoor. The rep's name is Kwan, but it's the person he's representing that has Fury worried. 

"This guy calls himself the 'Power Broker,'" he tells her and Steve. "Word is he takes it literally. If someone out here is looking to merge Chitauri tech and vibranium, it's this asshole."

But even she can't be in meetings all the time, and at least once a day she packs her laptop and intel into her tote bag and heads down to the little hut by the lake where she checks on the goats (all doing just fine under K'Senge's care), the hut (untouched), and more often than not sits for an hour or more under the shade tree, trying not to picture Bucky lounging next to her.

Steve sometimes accompanies her. He's doing his best, she knows: he always seems to be nudging her to eat something or reminding her when it gets late that she should sleep. And he's good company. It's not his fault he isn't his best pal.

Who is absolutely everywhere she looks: in her room, down by the lake, in the meeting rooms, in the lab; everywhere.  

She'd been sitting beneath the shade tree the afternoon after he went under when Anwuli, the little girl with the pretty beaded bracelets, came shyly up to her, holding out a small bouquet of wildflowers. "From the White Wolf," she told Sharon, who took the flowers, wordless, as everything she'd tamped down in the lab threatened to spill right back out of her.

"Thank you," she'd said, and the little girl had flushed and run off.

That had been five days ago. She's received four more bouquets since. They sit in water in her room, filling it with a faint sweet fragrance as she looks at herself in the mirror, putting the final touches on Irma and waiting for Steve to arrive.

Nearly time.

Comments

[from_the_outside]

"Fury probably likes Redwing," she points out, grinning. "Drones are right up his alley. Even though they aren't usually so... whimsical."

She tips back the rest of her coffee and swallows her last bite of bread, then gets up to grab her pack and turn back to him, giving him a last wry smile that's only Sharon for the next little while.

"Ready, Mr. Devlin?"

[marvel_npc]

He smiles back at her, bright and open and somehow almost mischievous, before he finishes his own coffee and gets to his feet.

As he does, he lets himself go quiet and intensely focused, and silently promises his absent best friend that everything will be okay.

"Of course, Ms. Kruhl," Devlin says. Very politely.

[from_the_outside]

Irma Kruhl is like what you might get if Sharon Carter, rather than growing up with SHIELD, had grown up with HYDRA. She's competent and efficient, wears mostly black, keeps her emotions to herself.

And, like Sharon Carter, she is very, very good at what she does.

She and Devlin arrive at the landing pad precisely on time. The smile she gives King T'Challa is perfectly polite and doesn't touch her eyes at all. "Your Highness," she says. "You have been a perfect host. I very much hope we will see each other again soon, yes?"

[marvel_npc]

"I hope the same," T'Challa replies. At his side, Okoye stands quiet and still, merely observing.

"I am pleased to have had the chance to get to know you, and what Skyline has to offer Wakanda - and what Wakanda might offer in turn."

[from_the_outside]

"I look forward to it," she says, and nods to Ryan to puts the bags on the flyer that will take them to the airport before following him on and relaxing, however briefly, back into Sharon Carter as she straps herself in.

It's going to be a long few flights.

[marvel_npc]

The flyer lifts off. T'Challa stays where he is, watching, until it vanishes in a streak across the sky, then goes back inside with Okoye. They'd all discussed this, too: while it's not likely that they're being observed, it's best to be careful and not be seen leaving immediately.

Besides, not only is there no way that the flights 'Kruhl' and 'Devlin' will be taking can outpace Wakandan technology, he already knows where they're going.

[from_the_outside]

Stepping off the second of a multi-hour flight still perfectly pressed and without a hair out of place is a particular skill of Irma's, but she still needs to prepare for the auction itself.

Which is good, because they can set up camp in the suite of rooms they'd arranged beforehand with plenty of time to sweep for bugs and cameras and darken the windows.

"Clear," Sharon tells the connection at her wireless earbud, and turns to Steve. "Okay," she says. "Last run-through. Let's go through the checklist."

[marvel_npc]

Steve presses the tiny switch on the device Shuri had pressed on him a couple of days ago. "It will block directional microphones and other such things," she'd promised him. "And it is so new, no one will know it even exists, much less how to counter it."

He sets it on the table and nods to Sharon. "You recite and I confirm this time, or the other way around?"

[from_the_outside]

"I'll go through," she tells him, and starts running down the list of their equipment.

"Earpieces, connected. Body armor, Steve. Suit bracelet, Sharon. Thigh holster, Sharon. Sidearm, Sharon. Throwing knives."

She runs through it all and looks up at Steve, waiting before she moves onto the mission plan itself.

[marvel_npc]

"Check," Steve confirms. "All items present, all accounted for."

It's at times like this that he misses the shield, but it's not like he'd be able to use it on this mission anyway.

"Next."

[from_the_outside]

"You'll stick near me at the cocktail party," she continues. "I'll greet Gray. It's unlikely he'll pay too much attention to you, but if he talks to you, keep your answers brief. Use that time to check out the other muscle and keep an eye for traps."

She pulls up a holographic projection of Gray's rented building and doesn't allow any of the slight pang she feels show on her face. "Threat assessment: there are two potentially dangerous moments. First, the auction itself: you won't be in the room with me. It's a closed room and if things go badly it could get very messy. Gray will be in the room with us; he has a rep for keeping things clean. Still, something to watch out for.

"Second: if we win the bid, there are a bunch of bad guys with a vested interest in us not making it out of there with the plans and prototype. Or breathing. We'll have to get our timing just right to make sure we don't either get caught by one of them or swept up by Ross and his team when T'Challa calls them in."

[marvel_npc]

Steve nods.

"We have a choice of five routes for extraction and escape," he starts. "Depending on vehicle type and intercept from the bad guys and Ross, we'll be able to adapt."

"... Sharon, I don't like not being in the room at the auction. Are you sure there's no way to work it?"

[from_the_outside]

"I know," she says, wry. "I don't like it either. I'm not sure, but I also don't know if it would be a good idea to try. They might get squirrely and suspicious if I insist on having my guy there, and then we'd be stuck with all their muscle in the same small room with us."

She puts a hand on his arm and gives him a rueful look. "But this is a better class of criminal than you've been after, lately. Less with the barfights and more with the psychological manipulation. And you'll be nearby."

[marvel_npc]

"Maybe one of the others'll have the same worry," Steve says, ever optimistic. "Then I can be there without them being suspicious of us."

He smiles at her as she touches his arm. "But if we have to, we have to. And if anything happens, I'll get there fast. Really fast."

[from_the_outside]

"Faster than a speeding bullet?" she teases. "Definitely faster than anyone they've got. And I've got this."

She holds up her left wrist, where the gold bracelet glints mellow and warm. "If things go bad enough that my cover won't matter anymore, I'll have this in the blink of an eye. And I'm assured that this time they won't be able to stab me."

[marvel_npc]

"They better not, or I'll never hear the end of it."

He nods to the bracelet. "Still a neat trick, though."

[from_the_outside]

"You and me both," she agrees.

It's not like she let herself get stabbed on purpose. She gives Steve a critical once-over. "Time to gussy up for a fancy party with a bunch of bad guys, Rogers. Try not to look too good, huh?"

[marvel_npc]

"Do my best," he agrees.

By now, he's even stopped shrugging uncomfortably at the fit of the padded body armor under the bodyguard's suit.

[from_the_outside]

"Pretty sure you're physically incapable of doing anything else," she tells him, and heads for her room. "Let's be ready to go in an hour."

He won't need as much time as she does, but Irma is never anything less than perfectly presentable.

[marvel_npc]

Just under an hour later, he's standing near the darkened windows, earpiece in place and practicing his bodyguard stance when he hears T'Challa's voice.

We are in position. Everything is quiet, so far.

"Good," Steve says. "Let's hope it stays that way. Quiet, quick, clean."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon arrives in a click of heels, uncharacteristically slinky in a form-fitting black dress, and touches her own ear. "We're ready to head out," she tells T'Challa and the extraction team. "You have us tracked?"

We are reading your suit bracelet and both earpieces, T'Challa tells them. We will not lose sight of you.

She smiles a little grimly and turns to Steve. "Okay," she says, and hands him the sealed envelope with their bid for safekeeping. "Let's go bag some international arms dealers."

[marvel_npc]

He tucks the envelope safely inside his suit and opens the door for her, and that quickly they're on their way.

---

Prague is interesting for a European city, T'Challa decides. The borders between the different sectors -- Josefov, Old Town, New Town, and the 'Lesser Town' across the river -- are invisible and yet clear. The architecture is a mix of historic stone and new glass-and-steel construction. The auction's to be held in a location balanced on the edge of both, near Wenceslas Square and just south of the National Museum, in a building that's old, quiet, and richly decorated. Its thick stone walls and high windows are easy to secure from both electronic surveillance and sniper fire while giving the look of someone unconcerned with anything but the appearance of quiet wealth.

("Gray's not an idiot," the White Wolf had said, studying the map and the images they'd obtained. "That's both good and bad for us.")

They've all taken note of the various extraction routes, including the shifts in the size of the streets and proximity to river bridges and the main train station, and are in place long before Irma Kruhl and Ryan Devlin arrive.

[from_the_outside]

Edmund Gray turns out to be the kind of genuinely charming asshole that could easily have made it as a legitimate businessman – he just prefers the slight tinge of danger and the exponentially higher rewards of holding events for the higher class of criminal element. He greets them personally, almost as soon as they've made their way through the metal detector.

(Their vibranium sidearms don't make so much as a peep.)

"Ms. Kruhl!" he says, all delight as he kisses both her cheeks. "So happy you could join us. It's always exciting to get a new competitor at the eleventh hour, yes?"

"Mr. Gray," she replies, smoothly. "Thank you for the invitation. May I introduce my associate, Mr. Ryan Devlin?"

[marvel_npc]

They'd practiced this. He doesn't smile, but inclines his head a fraction in acknowledgement of the introduction. He doesn't glare, either, as the point of this isn't to be aggressive... just present and neutral.

Evidently it was the right call, for Gray nods back to him and doesn't offer to shake hands. "Pleased to have you with us as well, Mr. Devlin, of course."

[from_the_outside]

Steve hits the perfect note of bland disinterest; Gray barely even glances at him. "Well," he says, turning back to her, "please, enjoy yourselves. Eat, drink, mingle; the auction will take place in half an hour."

He gives her a last blinding smile and heads to greet the newest arrival. She turns to 'Ryan' and nods to the cluster of guests near the bar and refreshments. Like any gathering of like-minded professionals, this event is almost as much for networking as it is for the auction itself. Pausing to take a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, she begins making the rounds, paying no attention either to Ryan or to the men like him who are scattered throughout the room.

It takes her a while to get to Kwan, but that's by design. He is by far the biggest point of interest in the room.