[616] ground zero for trouble

[daughterofliberty]

"Remember, Nick," she calls, buckling the utility belt of her suit. "I've got years of vacation time saved up. You owe me. After this, I'm taking five whole days in Virginia with Steve, and no one is going to bother us. Right?"

Fury scoffs, and she turns a gimlet eye on him. "Right?"

"Right," he says, holding up his hands in surrender. "Hell, Carter, it's not like the rest of the Avengers and SHIELD aren't around to pick up the slack. Go! You crazy kids have fun. Send a postcard. Let your hair down a little. You've been tense as a wire ever since – "

"I wonder why," she snaps, and he shakes his head. 

"Just saying," he says, as Tony Stark sniggers behind him. Sharon waves them both off, an unruly smile tugging at her mouth.

"I'll check in once I've made contact," she says. "Steve should be waiting for me at the rendezvous."

"Good luck, Agent Carter," Tony says, and she tosses him a crisp half-salute, then heads through the hatch towards the hangar that holds her vehicle: not the Quinjet, not for a mission this small, but the cherry-red convertible that hovers as she enters and taps out the activation code. "Come on, baby," she tells it. "Let's go for a ride."

But when she reaches the rendezvous at Avengers Tower and strides through the door, Steve's nowhere to be seen. 

And, honestly? Neither is the Avengers Tower.

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

"Guess that puts me in the starting lineup," Sam observes. "Okay, so it's me, you," he says, with a nod to Bucky, "and you two?" He looks at Nakia and Okoye, who both shake their heads.

"Okoye will remain with the others nearby," Nakia says, and Okoye nods, looking grimly resigned. "She is better as a warrior than a spy."

"And one more," Natasha puts in. Her expression is unruffled as everyone else turns to her with varying degrees of surprise. "A second bodyguard - one for Nakia."

"Okay, makes sense," Sam agrees. "Who?"

Natasha turns to look at Bucky, who feels all the wind go out of him as she says, "Yelena."

"No."

[marvel_npc]

"Wait," Steve says, for a moment too bewildered to be either worried or insulted. The others trade similarly bemused glances as he says,

"Who's Yelena?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky shifts into Russian without even thinking about it as he demands of Natasha, "ты с ума сошёл?"

"Успоко́йтесь, всё бу́дет хорошо́," Natasha flashes back. "ты знаешь, что она хороша. вы тренировали ее."

"Не в э́том де́ло!" Bucky argues, at which point Natasha rolls her eyes and looks past him at Steve.

"She's my sister," she says. "James is being overprotective."

[marvel_npc]

"You have a sister?" Steve says, trying in vain to latch onto any part of this conversation that he can.

Okoye, on the other hand, arrows in on the salient point. "She can fight?" she asks Natasha.

[nerves_of_ice]

Natasha looks pointedly at Bucky, who mutters several curses under his breath before nodding to Okoye. "She can fight," he admits, and Natasha smiles.

"She's as well-trained as I am," she says, smoothly. "And she'll know how to work with him. She's a good choice."

Sam's eyebrows have risen higher and higher as he listens to all this. He glances at Steve.

[marvel_npc]

"Fine," Steve says, firmly putting a stop to both his spiraling thoughts and any other questions that might come up.

"Nat, Buck; your word is good enough for me. But how the hell are we going to get her out here in time?"

"I may have the answer to that," T'Challa says, surfacing from a few moments of deep thought. "Endangered or no, the mission undertaken by Sharon Carter is still a dire one. I would like to call Everett Ross in to take over from Nick Fury. Perhaps together we can finally see an end to this threat."

He turns to Natasha. "If your sister is willing and happens to be staying somewhere along the way, he could bring her with him and meet us there."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Oh, she'll be willing," Natasha tells them. "Location might be a problem."

"Call her," Bucky suggests. "Be sure on both counts."

"I can patch the call in here," Shuri offers. Natasha types something on her phone quickly, watches as a response pings back, then sends a second message and nods to Shuri.

"Use this number." She recites it aloud, and waits along with everyone else as Shuri does something on her end, then flicks a viewscreen into the air above the table.

[miss_american_pie]

"Hey!"

Yelena pauses halfway through the door, her phone in her hand, and leans back to stick her head around the jamb, rolling her eyes when she sees the face Melina is making. "Don't forget," the other woman warns. "It's your turn to do the dishes."

"Mama," Yelena says, scandalized. "I will. Can I just – ? Okay? Thank you?"

Melina waves her off and turns, muttering something to herself that Yelena is just as happy to not to hear. For her part, she slams out the door and into the early evening air as she thumbs the screen and accepts the call. "они сводят меня с ума," she says, holding the screen up to her face. "I – "

She falls off, features furrowing into a frown as she stares at the faces looking back at her. "Is that the king of Wakanda?"

[marvel_npc]

"See?" Shuri hisses at her brother. "You are too recognizable!"

T'Challa ignores her in favor of inclining his head to Yelena. "Indeed," he says, mildly, "I am. It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Yelena. We have a favor to ask of you."

[miss_american_pie]

"Me?"

She glances at the other faces she can see, and her eyes grow huge as she recognizes Steve Rogers. "Is that Captain America?"

As much as possible, she addresses Natasha, who she can just barely see at the edge of the screen. "Старшая сестра, это что-то от Мстителей?"

"Did you say Captain America?" she hears Alexei holler from the kitchen, and she rolls her eyes and yells back,

"Busy! Give me a second!"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Unofficially," Bucky says, before Natasha can answer her. "Hello, Alyona."

He can't quite manage a smile, but he can feel his expression soften a little as he looks through the display at her.

"My friend is in trouble. We're going to get her out of it. It could get messy."

[miss_american_pie]

"Yasha?"

She moves the phone and cranes her neck, trying to see him, as if she could move the display from her end. He sounds...

Bad. For once, she doesn't say so out loud.

My friend is in trouble. All her bewilderment washes away as her expression clears to intent focus. "What do you need me to do?"

[marvel_npc]

Yasha, Sam mouths, and leans over to whisper to Steve, "Did you know about any of this?"

Steve shakes his head at Sam and looks at Yelena. "If you agree," he says, firmly, "you'll be going in undercover with Bucky." ("James," Natasha murmurs.) "We'll give you the details when you get here, if you come, but it's going to be dangerous. You can say no."

[miss_american_pie]

Yelena's eyebrows climb throughout this short speech, and she glances at Natasha, rather than Captain America.

"'It's going to be dangerous,'" she repeats, unimpressed. "Is he serious?"

"He always is," Natasha says, something unruly shading at the corner of her mouth. "I'll fill him in. You in?"

"Yes, of course," Yelena tells her. Him. All of them. "It's this or spend the rest of my life doing chores like Zolushka. Where's the rendezvous?"

[marvel_npc]

"I'll text you the coordinates and time," Natasha tells her. "Be nice to the man who's picking you up. He's about to have a very hard day."

[miss_american_pie]

"I can be nice," Yelena says, defensively. "Fine. See you soon."

She waves and then makes an awkward head-bob of a bow towards King T'Challa, who she had kind of forgotten about, then drags her thumb across the bottom of her screen to hang the call up. She takes a moment to blink to herself, then stands and yells: "Mama? I need my suit!"

"I think it's in the laundry," comes Melina's call. "Why?"

Yelena's already coming back inside, but she's shouting anyway. "I have to go rescue someone with Natasha and Captain America – don't start," she says, holding up a warning finger to Alexei before she runs up the stairs.

"Don't wait up."

[nerves_of_ice]

Shuri's laughter chimes out as the call disconnects. "I like her," she tells them all. Natasha smiles.

So does T'Challa, for a moment, before he grows solemn. "The last piece remaining is to contact Deputy Commander Ross." Somehow, Bucky manages to keep a neutral expression, although he can feel Steve tense beside him. "Shuri, if you could do the same again, but keep the visual focused on me until I signal you to expand it. We will need to secure the line against the JTTF systems."

Shuri nods, and her fingers fly over her tablet. Moments later, the call rings through, and the slightly-frazzled face of Everett Ross appears over the table.

"Your highness. This is unexpected."

[marvel_npc]

"I apologize for interrupting you, Deputy Commander," T'Challa says, smoothly. "Please know I would not presume to do so were it not absolutely necessary; but it is urgent."

He pauses, then says, blunt but not unkindly: "We believe Sharon Carter is still alive. We intend to discover the truth for ourselves, and, if she is... we intend to extract her from her mission in Madripoor."

[marvel_npc]

"What?" Ross stares at T'Challa through the phone, disbelieving. "But - how - why? What did you find out?"

[marvel_npc]

"Shuri decided to review the recording we were shown," T'Challa says, smoothly.

After all, it isn't a lie. "She found a number of discrepancies, enough to make us suspicious. In the context of Nick Fury's relaxed relationship with the truth on more than one occasion, we feel it justifies a rescue operation. If she is alive – "

Beside him, Nakia tenses. " – If she is alive," he continues, "then she is friendless and alone in the middle of the most dangerous city in the world. She is still under my protection, Ross; I cannot allow it to stand."

[marvel_npc]

He takes a moment to imagine Fury encountering T'Challa after a deception of this sort, and has to fight hard to keep from choking at the mental image.

"Of course you wouldn't," he says, instead. "I can work up a basic profile for you of what we know about the major players, at least in a general sense. It would help if we had any idea what Fury had her doing, but oh well."

Damn him to hell anyway for interfering with his agent, never mind the current status. They were working on that.

[marvel_npc]

T'Challa hesitates for the space of a heartbeat. "We have some better idea of what she was working on," he admits.

"From what we know, the mission was an extension of our previous attempts to trace and neutralize the illegal weapons manufacture ring."

In other words... precisely what Ross has been working on, by the book, for over a year. "So you can see why I have called you."

[marvel_npc]

"Son of a bitch," Ross breathes. "That bastard. He sent her to Madripoor after the weapons traffickers and lied about it?"

He shoves the rage back - there's no time for it now, although he'll have to deal with Fury later.

"Yes, I can. I'll give you the full debrief, everything I've got. What else do you need?"

[marvel_npc]

"You, if possible," T'Challa says.

"We have assembled two teams for the mission. I would like you to be part of one. Your knowledge of the situation – and familiarity with both the likely players and Agent Carter's methods – would be invaluable."

[marvel_npc]

"I'll make it possible," Ross tells him. "If you're still in Wakanda, it'll be faster for me to meet you there, but otherwise I can rig a few things and meet you in Madripoor."