Chapter Text
There are three public announcements made early in the morning on the day after N’Jadaka ascends. Nakia does not learn about them till later in the afternoon when she, Shuri and Agent Ross arrive at a safe house in a Border Town. None of the announcements make mention to the abrupt departure of the queen dowager and princess. The announcements are accompanied by an addendum from the Elder Council. There is no mention of T’Challa and what would be done to his body once recovered. Of all the things to occur in the last 24 hours to push her to the edge, this is perhaps the closest.
She has been running on instinct, and years of mission critical management. There is no time to grieve, no time to think beyond what is most important, barely any time to assess her own complicated alliances to find who she could trust. But in the moment, after a restless night of covering their tracks, evading all attempts at contact and surveillance—guiding Shuri through the process of detaching herself from an extensive network of technology and interface she’s been connected to since birth almost—Nakia allows herself a moment, just a small moment to feel the weight of what has happened.
Then she wipes her eyes and goes back into the living area to brief Everett Ross.
She walks over to the room’s low table where the American agent is already seated and settles across from him. The table between them is bare, an hour previous it held several plates and some clear cups for drinking. The food tasted like dust in her mouth, Shuri hadn’t even finished hers.
Agent Ross looks ready to sleep himself but Nakia isn’t fooled, the agent has been watching everything around him in fascinated assessment ever since he awoke in Shuri’s private labs. It would be foolish to underestimate him or his motives, particularly given what he knew now. She made a calculated risk days ago when she pleaded with T’Challa to save his life. She banked on his exposure to Klaue’s retelling of events to tip the scales in her favor. Her calculation had proven correct and T’Challa uncharacteristically listened, all for him to be dethroned and killed by another American agent mere days later.
If she weren’t so close to finishing what N’Jadaka started she might laugh. What a sharp turn of events, what coincidental timing, what—
“When was the last time you were in contact with Lt. Erik Stevens?” Nakia doesn’t have access to her usual retinue of information and it adds to her current blindness of the overall situation. It’s too dangerous right now for her to access any of it, not with her current suspicions, not with the fantastic lack of oversight the last week revealed.
“It’s been years, easily. I know of him more than I know him in person.” Ross to his credit doesn’t balk at the line of questioning, they were both professionals. She doesn’t doubt just as she is fishing for information so will he.
“He almost killed you back in Busan.” She expects the agent to have already made the connection.
“Yeah… so if you think we’re working together—” Ross denies the obvious conclusion.
“It is quite convenient isn’t it? You, taking Klaue into custody and he just so happens to break him out.” Their new king being so thorough as to cover his tracks and kill his informant, were that the case. It could be just that neat, or Ross could be telling the truth.
“I’m not working with Stevens. I had no idea he was even in Busan and haven’t had any contact with him in years. His teams don't run with mine.” Ross is telling her too much by their industry standards and yet it is not enough. She’s never wanted her usual accesses so bad.
“What would he do if he knew you were here, if he found you?” She has no intention of handing the agent over to N’Jadaka and she trusts Okoye to keep this indiscretion and a few others secret. She just wants to see what Ross will say.
Ross doesn’t immediately answer and what he does say quiets some of her growing paranoia. “Stevens has been in deep cover for years, what he and his people do… it’s complicated. If he’s here on orders—which I doubt, this isn’t our style—I may be able to make a deal, it’s a big maybe. I wouldn’t bet my or anyone else’ life on it.”
N’Jadaka claimed to have been training his entire life to challenge for kingship. She is loath to dismiss the possibilities of just who might have encouraged and sponsored such training for future gains. If certain things are as dire as she suspects, it would not even be foreign intelligence but certain sects of Wakanda’s own War Dogs.
“I have a vested interest in your survival, I do not think Wakanda’s new king does.” She will not threaten him explicitly, there is no need. His proximity to Shuri is something she will have to deal with sooner or later, but for now it's better that he sees her as an ally.
“I don’t think he does either. How do you see this situation going? Will someone else challenge him?” There’s an inflection in Ross’ tone that Nakia recognizes from many missions and trips abroad. Usually accompanied with a remark on how ‘quaint’ or ‘barbaric’ certain customs or beliefs were. Her lips quirk in barely hidden disdain, before tipping into something that resembles a smile. It’s more difficult than usual, she’s just so drained.
“No. It does not work like that.” Challenge day was a traditional formality, if a tribe had issues with the Panther Tribe, they raised them before challenge day. The Jabari's appearance after hundreds of years of separation was an anomaly just like N’Jadaka’s.
Ross isn’t satisfied with her answer. “So how does it work? How can a nation this advanced, have their ultimate leader be decided with a challenge by combat?”
The inflection from before is now even more pronounced. Ross asked a lot of questions in the beginning when they made their escape from the palace proper. Growing quieter when no answers were forthcoming beyond the absolutely necessary from Nakia and a nearly mute Shuri and Ramonda. Now that they are alone, she has made it seem almost safe to inquire and she can see those questions once again forming. Having gained as much information as she could without giving anything much in return, she decides to end the conversation.
“Do you remember in Honduras when he won the election?” He would, his team handled the transition. The recognition in his gaze is almost amusing as the dread he must feel when he connects all the tiny pieces, she has been giving him. Wakanda’s intelligence networks went much beyond their technology and spies. Much of the legwork was done by foreign agents themselves—whether wittingly or unwittingly.
“It’s a show.” Ross sounds consternated.
Nakia responds, “The actual challenge is a formality, those who might be inclined to challenge have already been addressed.” Except in this case, where a national secret and unknown prince appeared. They don’t talk for much longer; Ross has no information; she can’t already find herself given time and proper access. She in turn gives him nearly nothing to work with information wise—it helps that according to his American and capitalist perspective—Wakanda simply makes no sense.
When he retires to get some sleep, she powers on the working sole communication device in the entire safe house. There is a new message from Red. She reads the message three times before deleting the message and powering the device off. The message had read: “And he knew them and bore three children.”
The one line is coded, a verse from well-known Wakandan poet, it confirms her suspicions were correct and that she would need to move quickly, starting with the soldier T’Challa had so quietly offered asylum.
--
Nakia wakes Shuri up gently, a hand on the princess’ shoulder—she had only gone to sleep a scant four hours before. Despite the care she takes, Shuri jolts up as if shocked. There are a few precious seconds where Shuri looks confused before her memory of the day sets in. Nakia watches those bright eyes dim, just a bit and her heart aches in response. When Nakia speaks it’s brusque but not unkind: “We have to leave soon, please get ready.”
Since they are alone, Nakia speaks in common Wakandan. They have maybe two more hours left at their current location. Nakia had been thorough when disconnecting the both of them and covering their trail, but anything could have happened in the time they were here. She isn’t taking chances, not with Shuri—T’Challa’s heir—a sad voice reminds her, because T’Challa was dead. As if she could forget.
Shuri doesn’t respond with words, merely noding. Nakia steps away from the bed space and watches Shuri make her way to the shared bathroom. They need to have a conversation, several actually but she will start with the most pressing and have the others when they become more pertinent. At present, they were slated to remain in hiding and on the run till Nakia could secure a more permanent safe house or the current situation changed. Considering who was at the helm of the council, Dora Milaje and the War Dog Division she expects it to be awhile.
Shuri would not be an ideal candidate for this sort of deep cover given her near total dependency on technology that demanded continual connectivity—even if she weren’t now grieving the death of not just her father but her brother as well. Nakia suspects once the initial shock fades the princess will be very uncooperative with their current living situation. So, in an effort to side-step some of that push back she will try her best to explain the severity of the situation and why such extreme measures were needed. She is not looking forward to this because it will require her being somewhat truthful of her own questionable activities in recent years, but she knows it’s necessary. Shuri would not listen, would not stay hidden—for long anyway otherwise.
When Shuri comes out of the bathroom she looks more awake.
“What time is it?” Shuri asks.
“Almost 5 in the morning. We have some hours before we leave, I wanted to talk with you first about the situation.” Nakia dances around more specific wording like ‘your brother’s death’ or ‘your removal from every connective device attached to you’.
“When will I be able to use my kimoyo beads again?” Shuri asks what Nakia is expecting and she dithers for a split second on telling the truth or a nicer sounding lie. She settles for somewhere in between.
“Soon—I hope. I’m still looking for a more secure safe house. Till then neither of us can connect to the usual network or infrastructure. Do you understand why?”
“It’s traceable.” Shuri replies and Nakia nods.
“Very, very traceable.” The War Dog Division would never allow for information holes within Wakanda’s borders, most of the time it didn’t really matter. The level of surveillance most Wakandans were under has been the status-quo for longer than the Internet’s existence in the rest of the world. The veneer of privacy between citizens was there of course, accesses, rules, infringement policies, repercussion for unauthorized hacking. There were no such restrictions for the Division, not where Wakanda’s security was concerned. The only ‘black spots’ were within Jabari lands and even then, there was some overhead, if limited. All now in the hands of a man who may or may not be here on foreign orders. Bast preserve them all.
“I could make a reliable private network; I just need time—” Nakia is also expecting this. Shuri’s concentrations might be in vibranium working and neuro sciences but she understood the embedded technology enough to attempt her own private network, she might even succeed given enough time. But now is not the time to test that.
“Your attempts would be noticed before anything else. Even if you succeeded, they would have enough information to find you.” The ‘they’ here is neutral so she clarifies. “The Division was compromised even before N’Jadaka arrived, there are factions that wouldn’t mind you dead or in his custody.” Chief amongst them, her own former faction.
Shuri opens her mouth as if to argue and Nakia sees the exact moment comprehension dawns. Shuri asks with new trepidation in her voice, “Are you with them?”
Somehow Nakia isn’t expecting this. Insistence that she would be able to do what many others have tried and failed to do yes, denial that the situation was truly as dire as her mother and Nakia are making it out to be yes. But not the realization of the subtle implication of Nakia’s own involvement.
“I am with you.” Nakia uses a stronger form of ‘with you’ in reference to the promise she had made to Shuri’s mother the night before. She had sworn to Ramonda on Bast and their shared River Tribe gods that she would protect Shuri. Whatever her personal politics, she would not go back on her word. Would not allow T’Challa’s sister—his heir to die for this.
“You let my mother go to Jabari lands alone.” Shuri’s voice rises in alarm by the end as if having some horrible realization.
“She is not alone.” There were three highly trained and well trusted aides who had gone with her.
“I should be with her!” Shuri exclaims, voice shrill with panic.
“Your life is too precious to risk.” Nakia attempts to end the argument before it can begin. “I am not satisfied with things as they are, yes. But I am not a traitor or oath breaker, I swore to your mother that I would protect you—” with her life if necessary.
“Would you be with them if I was already dead?” Shuri’s voice is back to conversational levels, for which Nakia is glad even if the question makes her deeply uncomfortable. She did not want to think about Shuri dying.
“No.” If the word tastes bitter on her tongue, she blames it on what they have both already lost. Hypothetical scenarios were not real life and for all that she may have disagreed with T’Challa and his father’s politics, she had not wanted them dead. She takes one step and then another till she is closing the space between her and Shuri. Nakia finds she can’t quite read the expression on the younger woman’s features, it’s not a comforting realization. “I need you to trust me. I cannot protect you if you do not trust me.” Ramonda trusted Nakia with her remaining child and Wakanda’s heir. Perhaps she wouldn’t have if she knew Nakia’s true opinions on certain matters.
“What will happen now? We can’t keep hiding forever.” For some reason this is the sentiment that really reminds Nakia just how young and achingly Wakandan, Shuri is. Weeks or some months in deep cover is forever to her. She didn’t know what it meant, not truly, to live in constant and unending fear for your life. To be cut away from connections and networks she’d been surrounded by since she was a small child.
“We can’t, but we have to hide for now. At least until we receive word from your mother.”