The Wakandan palace sat perched atop a mountain peak. It wasn't particularly grand — not when compared to the imposing architecture of East Asia, and certainly not when measured against the royal palaces of Europe. The one thing it did have going for it was a distinctive cultural atmosphere that felt genuinely exotic, enough to keep things interesting.
T'Challa explained the palace's modest size by pointing to generations of kings who loved their people too dearly to squander wealth on renovations.
Daisy kept her expression neutral. Easy words to say. The entire nation's wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few royals — if that was what "loving your people" looked like, then Nick Fury was a model civil servant.
Vibranium kept pouring out of the earth faster than anyone could mine it. If they'd outfitted every citizen with a suit of armor, Wakanda wouldn't just dominate Africa — they could take the whole world. With three thousand Panther warriors, global conquest wouldn't even be a stretch. But the royal family feared a powerful populace, so they let the common people take enemy bullets while the royals quietly ate the Heart-Shaped Herb to enhance themselves, armed themselves to the teeth with Vibranium, and leapt in at the dramatic moment to play the savior.
They called it guardianship. Daisy responded with a flat, humorless smile.
The old king was a heavyset Black man in his sixties, wearing glasses, his hair more salt than pepper, with the kind of comfortable belly that spoke plainly of a good life. One look at his build told Daisy he was done with the Black Panther role — he'd long since passed that responsibility to his son.
In Daisy's more cynical reading, the old man had handed his son all the hard work and kept the throne — along with all its perks — for himself.
The king spoke English, which saved Daisy considerable trouble. She'd picked up enough Wakandan to get by, but the language was harsh, full of words that required a specific curl of the tongue, and even when she got the sounds right, the result came out strangely accented.
So they spoke in English.
The king wasn't entirely ignorant of the outside world, but his information was badly out of date. For one thing, he had no real idea what S.H.I.E.L.D. actually did — in his mind, it was something like the FBI or CIA.
Daisy set him straight immediately, going on at length about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s global authority. In her telling, Nick Fury practically ran the planet.
To build goodwill, she pulled out the story of Fury's grandfather — the old man who'd worked as an elevator operator — and spun it into a sentimental tale about how the Director still longed for the African landscapes and sounds of his ancestral home.
"Oh? Your organization's leader comes from Africa?" The king sat up a little straighter. Something like kinship flickered in his eyes, and his attitude toward S.H.I.E.L.D. warmed.
Daisy nodded smoothly and praised Fury's complexion — a beautiful dark complexion, that sort of thing — before pivoting to the recently retired UN Secretary-General and the candidate she supported, Barack Obama.
The old king looked slightly dazed. Had the balance of power in the outside world really shifted that much? His African brothers had built something that big?
The outgoing UN Secretary-General was Black. The shadowy leader of a global intelligence apparatus: also Black. And according to Daisy, next year's US presidential election had a very good chance of going the same way.
"From what I understand," the king said carefully, "the outside world has always been hostile to Black people."
It was phrased as a question, but the skepticism underneath was obvious. He thought she was making things up.
Was she? Daisy could have slammed her palm on the table. Every word she'd said was true.
She immediately rattled off a string of statistics — the kind anyone could look up — and walked the king through exactly how influential Black Americans had become. She painted a picture of a community you simply didn't cross lightly.
The goodwill she'd built through Fury and Obama had done its work. In the old king's eyes, Daisy had transformed from a random outsider passing through into a genuine ally of African people in America.
The king had long wanted to open Wakanda to the world, to make a place for it on the global stage. The right connections had never materialized — until now. Daisy had arrived like a godsend.
Still, he was a politician, and politicians calculated. He wanted a sense of her reach before deciding how much weight to give her in any negotiation.
"My son T'Challa has long wished to study in the West," the king said. "I wonder if Miss Johnson might be able to recommend a suitable university?" The phrasing was polite, but the subtext was clear — he was testing her.
It was only now that Daisy learned T'Challa's age. The young man, who'd been carrying himself with the gravity of someone two decades older, was just past twenty — around the same age as she was.
The king clearly wasn't asking about secondary school. He wanted a university.
T'Challa had no academic records to speak of, which would make it complicated if S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to formally sponsor the application. The prep school Daisy had once passed through — the one that hadn't even flinched at Kingpin — those elite institutions had networks powerful enough that they simply didn't need to accommodate S.H.I.E.L.D.
But Daisy knew someone who operated in exactly that world: Professor X. The man had connections across every major university on the planet.
"Does T'Challa have any preferences?" she asked. "Do you have somewhere specific in mind?"
T'Challa considered it. "England was once the world's dominant power. I've heard that British academic culture is especially rigorous."
Daisy felt a strange jolt of déjà vu. Had she really been the one to get T'Challa into Oxford?
She nodded and said she'd arrange the contact. Getting the call placed would have to wait until they were somewhere with working communications — Wakanda's isolation made that impossible from inside.
In this world, promises carried real weight. The king and T'Challa saw her agree without hesitation and took it as confirmation of her influence.
Keeping up the act, Daisy steered the conversation toward business — nominally, she still had a mission to complete, mercenaries to track down.
"You are a valued guest of Wakanda," the king said, spreading his hands. "These enemies came because of us. We'll handle them ourselves." The offer was clearly also a show of strength.
"Your Majesty, I'd still like to see my mission targets apprehended personally." She held firm.
The king had no real interest in letting unknown hostiles tear up his territory. He agreed with the ease of a man doing someone a small favor.
The two of them set off with a squad of the royal guard, linking up with Storm along the way, and headed for the surveillance center to locate the intruders.
"Impressive," Storm murmured, watching how the old king treated Daisy. She could tell Daisy had broken the stalemate in under an hour. Her estimation of S.H.I.E.L.D. rose another notch.
Wakanda's technological development had taken some unusual turns, but when it came to guarding its secrets, the kingdom had invested heavily. After a thorough sweep, the surveillance network and royal observers embedded throughout the civilian population finally located the mercenaries.
Batroc the Leaper stood at the center of the column, wearing a dark crimson bodysuit, his hair close-cropped, his build heavy and his bearing dangerous. He moved with the careful, controlled alertness of a man who'd survived by knowing when to be cautious.
Around him: a mismatched force. Americans. Russians. Mexicans. Italians. Daisy even spotted three figures in red who looked unmistakably like Hand ninjas.