Chapter Text
Prologue:
We have to get bigger.
A dream. Figures surround him. He can't make out their faces. He can feel only one thing. This is wrong. And if there's one thing he knows, it's right and wrong.
The figures move towards him, getting closer. They seem patronising, disappointed. They push him out, into the cold, further back, until he's falling. There must have been a ledge. Falling forever, through the endless abyss of space. And then-
"Wake up, old man."
Cap wakes up in his bed. He's in Avengers compound. He grumbles to himself (he thinks he's starting to feel his 90 years), before realising who woke him up.
"Tony. Couldn't sleep?"
"Yeah, I'm nursing an electromagnetic headache." Cap sees Tony, standing between him and the light from the corridor. Tony is clicking his fingers, tapping his feet, anything and everything to keep from standing still.
"That bad, huh" Cap thinks. Tony gestures out the door.
"Come on, I'll get you a coffee. We've got a meeting in an hour anyway".
"Oh, the Westview thing - yeah Tony, I was meaning to ask you when we last had contact with Wand-"
"No. I'm not thinking about that right now. Stephen will handle it. I wanted to talk big picture."
Cap hesitates. The last time Tony sounded like this, before the split at least, it was Ultron. Well, better to head it off now, he supposes.
"Ok... Let's walk"
Tony starts almost immediately, as soon as they're out the door of Cap's room. This has clearly been building for a while.
"Cap. I feel like after 2 alien invasions, a killer robot, and a big fight, we know each other. We understand what makes us tick."
"Sure, Tony."
"So you know, if I sense a problem is probable- no, even if it's possible, I gotta solve it. Treat one percent chance like absolute certainty and all that. I built suits to protect my family, Ultron to protect the Earth - hell, I hacked Shield just to see if they were building nukes, and they were. But every time something's gone wrong. I've been too slow, too dumb, too blind. My solutions - they've got too many fail points. Just too many variables. But I mean that's what happens when you treat saving the world as an equation and you rope in me and Banner to solve it."
"So..."
"So last week you said something that's been rattling around in my rubix cube of a brain. Vision brought up his equation again, and of course, being a machine, was trying to solve it logically. But you had a better solution. Do you remember what is was?"
"I do, Tony".
We have to get bigger.
That was the idea. The ying and yang. The mix of those two men, endlessly at odds. One was life, and the other was death.
Cap was satisfied. This, he could work with.
Chapter 1:
Months ago.
Everything dies.
What would you do if you were in a room with the smartest people on Earth? These guys have solved countless problems, written paper after paper, saved the world a good few times. And now, the very smartest in the room (although none of the others would admit it), turns to you and says this.
"Everything dies. It is a known fact of reality. You, me, and everyone on this planet. It is simply how things are. And I accept that"
24 hours ago, the outskirts of Wakanda.
"Okoye! We have almost reached the Necropolis"
"Indeed, my queen. Soon, we can pay respects to our dear T'Challa"
Shuri, along with Okoye, Ayo, Aneka and a small party, journey through the Wakandan outlands. Today is a special day - the anniversary of T'Challa's death. It has been a difficult few weeks for Wakanda. The tenuous peace with Atlantis last only a few days until Namor imagined some slight and called the whole thing off. Thankfully, save a few skirmishes, there has been no outright war as of yet. This gives Shuri some time to pay respects to her brother.
They approach the temple. The party chatters happily behind them, fresh after a good meal and buoyed by the beautiful surroundings. Rounding the corner, they see the Necropolis. On the surface, a large flat stadium area with some crumbling pillars - which only serve to hide the real treasure beneath. Miles and miles of tunnels, filled with Wakanda's revered dead.
As they approach, a sudden trembling stops Shuri in her tracks.
"What is it, my Queen?" asks Ayo.
Nothing. Until suddenly-
"Look out!"
Shuri yells as a rhino suddenly materialises from thin air. It stampedes straight through the party, luckily injuring no-one, only trampling on a few bushes. Shuri, however, is more interested in where it came from.
"jsschuuum jscchuum jscchuuumm"
The air in front of her is almost visible. It hums with a slow beat. As she steps closer, a wall becomes thicker and thicker. She slowly places a hand through, then an arm, then her whole body. "Stay here", she asks the party.
"By the Goddess"
The air is thick, and red. Birds screech, flapping in all directions. Animals clearly cannot stand still. The trees rumble, and there is wind so fast is almost blows her off her feet. But what is most unnerving - what absolutely should not be there- Another earth hangs in the sky.
"This cannot be happening..."
Figures descend from the other earth. They land close to where Shuri entered what must be another reality it is so different from her own. A woman, flanked by two guards. She is tall, thin. Skin and hair the purest white, offset with all black clothes and an uncovered midriff. Clearly not fashion of our world. Shuri hides herself in the bushes.
The woman speaks to one of the guards, who activates a device. It glows with an otherworldly energy.
Suddenly, Aneka and Ayo emerge through the gateway. They did not listen to Shuri's request to stay. They gasp at the sudden sight, and the woman whips her head round in an instant. She speaks.
"Suharruru?"
"What language is that, my queen?" Asks Ayo. "is it old Akkadian?"
"Older", says Shuri. "You speak High Sumerian"
"And you speak English", says the woman. "...So. It is one of those Earths."
"You can understand me... Who are you? This earth that hangs in the sky - is it your doing?"
"My doing?" She almost smirks. "Child. I am a Black Swan. This is the work of no man. The Incursions are simple fact. We watch, and obverve, and give the Great Destroyer Rabum Alal his due."
"That means nothing to me."
"Oh, but to me it means everything... Tell me, child. If I told you I came here to kill a world... would you try to stop me?"
Shuri activates her suit. "I would do more than try."
Black Swan's smirk seems to extend upwards. "Kill them"
The guards raise their weapons and fire on the three. Ayo stands behind Shuri, who's suit absorbs most of the blow. Aneka is not so lucky. She is turned to ash in an instance. Ayo screams a hideous scream, and it is all Shuri can do to drag her into the treeline.
Black Swan turns to one of the guards, and in High Sumerian: "They are headed towards the treeline. They cannot be allowed to reach the Incursion wall. Stop them."
In the treeline, Ayo stops Shuri.
"I am sorry, my Queen. I know we must retreat. But... I must avenge my wife."
"No Ayo, you must return - warn the city - perhaps we can evacuate before-"
She never manages to finish the sentence. Another blast finds Ayo's shoulder, sending her spinning.
"No!" cries Shuri. She steels herself, and anticipating the final shot, somersaults to cover Ayo's broken body.
"I will not let you take even more from Wakanda today."
Moving like the panther itself, she sprints, somersaulting over trees. "May the Goddess show me my mark!". Without even seeing, her claws have found the guard's throat. She emerges from the treeline, and views the scene.
Black Swan turns to the guard holding the device. "Is it ready?"
"Yes. As Agreed"
"Sweet Manifold. Are you ready to kill a world?"
A beat.
"No."
She strikes him. "Then what good are you?"
Shuri approaches, quietly.
Manifold says to Black Swan: "So this is my fate - you liar. You said I would live!"
"And that, Manifold, is where you are wrong."
"But- You said I would live, and not die!"
She turns to him, eyes aglow. "Everything dies."
He is obliterated with a laser blast from her eyes.
Black Swan ready the device. Shuri draws near.
"Next on the hit list", Black Swan murmurs. Shuri crouches, readying for a strike.
Black Swan turns, her eyes moving upwards to the Earth in the sky.
Shuri pounces, blinding towards her target. A click. A punch. Black Swan is disarmed of her device.
But a second too late. The device, whirring into life, activates, causing a humongous explosion, surely enough to destroy a planet-
Shuri looks up. The ground beneath her feet is intact. The grass is calm. The wind has stopped. In the sky, she sees for a moment a flash, a blinding light, the other Earth splintering into pieces as it and all it's inhabitants are destroyed. And then nothing.
Back at the palace.
Shuri has removed her armour. But she still wears her robes. This is not a day to break protocol. She is receiving visitors, and protocol may soon be all she has left. Her wrist beads beep. They're arriving.
"Oh brother. Oh Father. Oh Mother. For you are surely together in the Astral Plane, how would you have solved this impossible task that lies before me. Please, take me to you. Please, save me from what this world demands of me, for I am not up to the task without you!"
The visitors begin to arrive.
"Oh Goddess, save me from righteous men."
From a quinjet, Tony Stark.
"Save me from machines made flesh."
Touching down, Vision.
"Save me from summoners"
Doctor Strange materialises from a portal.
"Save me from thinkers"
From the quinjet again, Bruce Banner.
"And from the devil himself"
Rising from the lake, Namor.
"Goddess, save me from what we're about to do."
Led by a grim Captain America, the Illuminati arrive in Wakanda.