F*ck it’s Wakanda

Ulysses Klaue

In another part of the world, a man by the name of Klaue walked through the bowels of his base, a shipwrecked and beat up old tanker.

He liked it for several reasons. First, because he liked the word 'bowels' under most circumstances. Heh. Bowels.

Second, because the atmosphere just fit so perfectly with what he was doing, damn it! He was an arms dealer, not some namby-pamby wanna-be mob boss. Who gave a shit if he was making more money than most kings off of the business, he was still selling guns. Why idiots like Sonny Burch worked out of fancy restaurants and penthouse apartments, Klaue never understood. If something did the job and did the job well, why spend extra money off expensive crap to replace that?

The tanker was solid, in the middle of nowhere, easy to defend, and cheap as hell, since, well, no one gave a crap about it. Which made it perfect to hide things like missiles and vibranium in, funnily enough.

Klaue strode through the tanker, walking past his men as they organized things for sale and storage. He had good guys, even if they were a little stiff sometimes. No taste for fun on the job.

He grinned with a flash of silver teeth as he walked into his office and looked out over his crappy little base, feeling a hint of pride at what he saw. Yep. Today was going to be a good day.

...Oh crap, he'd tempted fate.

Klaue waited for a moment. When nothing happened, he relaxed, going over to his desk and grabbing a piece of candy from a bowl.

Then the power in the boat suddenly shut off, leaving them in darkness. That's when the screaming began to echo through the boat.

"Fuck, I knew it!" Klaue grabbed the gun on his desk and ran out the door. Outside, his men were panicking. "Oh come on idiots, are you kidding!? Grab guns and shoot something!" Klaue grinned. "Get the big ones too, have some fun!"

Some of his men in the shadows yelled out affirmatives, and soon the sound of bullets filled the air.

Until another sound responded. The familiar sound of a sonic weapon finally made Klaue's grin fall away.

"Wakanda. Fuck," he turned and ran as more sounds filled the air, the darkness lit up with blue lights. Worse was the quiet sections. The moments when someone shooting a gun suddenly disappeared in the shadows without a sound. That could not have been good.

Klaue went deeper into the tanker, aiming for the back where a way out had been built. Except that as he ran across the catwalks, the sounds seemed to follow him with relentless ease.

"Damn it, damn it, had to happen today of all days!" Klaue spat out running along with his pistol tight in hand. He got to a door and grabbed at the wheel to unlock it, twisting hard and pushing it open with a bit of trouble. "Come on you damn... gragh!"

Pushing his way through, he cursed aloud when a sonic weapon hit a wall nearby. Adrenaline pushed him forward. He aimed his gun back as he ran through the halls, shooting his gun behind him at whoever it was that was following him. The bullet bounced off of the blue light, but he continued running despite that, his legs pumping. He could see the exit now, an opening leading to the 'garage' full of cars in the boat. Just needed to get in there, hop into one of the SUV's, then head to Johannesburg and meet with one of his people.

Klaue entered the garage and slapped a button on the wall, the gate at the end opening up and ran past some vehicles towards the SUV in question. Once inside of it, he grabbed the keys out of the middle compartment and put it in the ignition.

"Okay, no horror movie shit, got it?" Klaue twisted the key and grinned at the instantaneous sound of the car engine roaring to life. "There's a good girl!"

Pressing on the accelerator, the car rushed forward, heading to the gate. He passed through it at about fifty miles an hour-

Something ran at him from the side, slamming into the car like a missile. The car twisted at the hit, slamming into the edge of the gate as it left the tanker. The car spun out of control. Whatever had hit the SUV spun upward and grabbed the hood, a round object landing on the black metal. Whatever it was, the disc seemed to cause the car to lose power, leaving Klaue twisting at a useless steering wheel. The SUV rolled to a weak stop on the dirt. Klaue cursed, getting out of the car, only to have a black shadow separate from the SUV and rise in front of him.

"...Well, you're a sight better looking than your dah was, boy," Klaue said weakly.

Black Panther stood before him in the sunlight, dressed in the black armor and catlike helmet the represented the Panther Habit. He stepped forward and grabbed Klaue by the lapel, pushing him into the SUV. Behind him, explosions came from the tanker that had once been Klaue's home, a group of woman in red armor moving towards them from it.

"Damn it, you all really caught me at a bad moment," Klaue said to the Amazonian women striding towards him, giving them a roguish grin. "Tell you what ladies, let me get my makeup kit and my nice suit, you come back when I'm a bit prettier?"

The five women stopped and gave him looks like stone. Black Panther reached a hand back and received a syringe from one of the women.

"Okay, can you not?" Klaue said with a grimace. "I promised I'd stop with the hard stuff, took a program and everything."

Black Panther injected the syringe into his neck.

"Damn... I was going to get my three year... chip..."

As Klaue passed out, Black Panther let out a sigh of relief. "I wish my father had warned me he would talk that much."

Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

On returning to New York City, after all the rounds of testing had been done, I was left in my room, where I made a phone call. After ringing for a bit, the line picked up.

"Matt Murdock speaking," the man on the other end said.

"Hey Matt, it's Mahmoud. I got your email. You said you wanted me to call?"

"Yes… How do you know?" he said, as though he was asking a casual question and not one loaded with C4.

I took a moment to tap the back of my phone, a beeping signaling that X was keeping anyone from listening in. "About the fact that your sight was replaced with… I don't know, just insanely powerful everything else? Am I close?"

Matt was quiet on the other end for a bit. When he spoke, his tone was somewhat like Bucky's when he was seconds from punching a punk. "And?"

"I lived in Hell's Kitchen for a few, so I did hear about a 'Man in Black Mask' beating up thugs. I'm guessing that was you. Combined with working with a worldwide spy organization with access to every camera in existence..."

"Makes sense," Matt said. "So what do you want?"

"More good guys in the world," I said simply. "That's it. I'm a superhero now, I guess, but my powers mean I'm going to be called to help on a worldwide scale. I won't be able to always patrol in New York like I used to. So if there are some people willing to do the same, I want to help. That's all."

"...Who else knows?" Matt asked.

"Me… maybe some people in BRIDGE," I thought of a certain redhead who had mentioned Matt to me the other day. "But doesn't look like it for the most part, since your abilities aren't exactly flashy. But I'm not going to tell anyone. Anyone finds out, it's on their own."

He sighed in annoyance. I walked around my apartment in the Avengers Tower, going over to a window and looking over the city quietly.

"Well, your deal seems legit," Matt said at last. "And you say you want to help me?"

"How about we meet up and talk about it?" I asked. "We can make some initial plans, maybe show you that working together is the best way to protect New York? Beat up some assholes on patrol a few times together?"

Matt chuckled. "Sure, let's, uh, let's meet tonight."

After making plans, I looked out into New York again, thinking. I was personally one of the most powerful beings on Earth… when given the chance to press down on the Omnitrix. But I could still be killed. And Hell's Kitchen was dangerous before I became a household name, people might shoot from the distance to prove a point. Might need some protection.

Luckily, I had a friend with a room down the hall from mine.

Later that night, Natasha and I were walking through New York City together. She was wearing a leather jacket and red shirt, her red hair curly and long around her neck. I was wearing a Black Widow shirt, just to be funny, the sleeves golden and the rest of it black, with a red logo in the center sort of reminding me of the one I had on the Omnitrix, a red backpack swinging as I walked with the super-assassin. We were walking down West 44th street in Hell's Kitchen. If you've never been, I don't recommend it as a tourist site. It's basically every seedy part of New York all bundled into a couple of blocks, complete with a bunch of guys on all the street corner leering at people and making threats or crooning promises to 'show you a good time' to any girl with legs and a face. That wasn't to say there weren't any good people there, in fact there were more of those than there were assholes. It was a good town, at its core.

Even then, I don't think either Natasha or I were surprised when a trio of guys walked over towards us from down the street, ambling our way with a lazy confidence. Right up until Natasha carelessly flipped her hair and opened her jacket a bit.

The two small pistols revealed by the action were a mistake on her part, I'm sure, as was the long blade at her waist. Note my sarcasm of course, since I doubt much Natasha did was ever by 'mistake'. Same with the way her walk went from casual stride of a woman going from point A to point B, to the long and dangerous catwalk of a killer. The difference was subtle. See, the first was walking. The second was walking while seconds away from stabbing a punk in the heart with a smile on your face.

The three guys quickly found something else to look at, the vicious smiles turning into carefully neutral looks on their faces.

"I really need to learn how to do that," I told Natasha as we walked down the road, passing our would-be attackers.

"It's all in the hips," Natasha said with a smirk. "I'll teach you one day."

"Yeah, but I don't have hips as nice as yours," I quipped.

Natasha chuckled. "Should I tell Skye and Jen you're hitting on me?"

"If you want to, but I'll tell everyone about all the weird sexual encounters your alternate universe selves had," I nudged her with an elbow. "Like the one where you had sex with Tony."

"At least I had high standards," Natasha smiled before she frowned a bit. "Wait, is this the one where I turned out to be a traitor?"

"That's a stone every person we know can't throw," I admitted. "Even Steve had a HYDRA moment in one universe."

"Steve?!" Natasha said, sounding genuinely shocked. "That doesn't even sound real!"

"Yeah, it took a bunch of weird cosmic mumbo-jumbo for that to go down," I shrugged. Natasha was basically one of the few people I could talk about other universes without her going existential on me every few minutes. The others would likely spend a few days looking at the horizon, rethinking existence. Natasha rolled with it. The world was the world, and Natasha wasn't going to waste it comparing herself to other versions of herself. I had no idea if that was a healthy attitude, but I had to admire it. Considering I'd had a nightmare once of an Evil Ben tracking me down I mean. I focused on the street around us. "Where did they say we should turn?"

"Let's see..." Natasha looked around. "Bawdy, right down there," she nodded down towards a street a couple of blocks away.

"Right. Hey, thanks for this, Nat. I mean, keeping it secret and everything," I said gratefully.

"No problem," she looked at me. "You know you'll owe me after this though?"

"Owing the Black Widow seems like a dangerous prospect. By the way, how come you kept that name? Isn't it kind of... edgy?"

She laughed. "Yeah, I guess so. But apparently, the marketing people said that the image works for me."

We turned around the corner, walking down Bawdy. "Yeah, the whole dangerous super-spy thing must have been a stretch."

"You mention that a lot," Nat said, giving me a look. "Does it bother you? My history? I mean, you said you've seen everything all the alternate versions of me did. Do you worry about it?"

"I think we had this conversation before," I noted. "Come on, Nat. You're one of my mentors now. You know what I think of you."

We walked for a bit longer.

"You're painfully naive sometimes... Getting better. But still naive," she smiled at me. "Okay, Mahmoud. One thing I need to ask you as your 'mentor'. Did you even notice Ruby over there?"

I blinked, then turned. The petite teenager waved at me from where she was walking, an irritating smirk on her face. She was wearing a small black jacket and yoga pants that were slightly big on her, eyes glittering in the light as she twirled a small throwing knife in her fingers before throwing it. I had enough time to blink before Natasha caught it an inch from my right eye. "Holy shit!"

"You're fine," Natasha said with a grin as she put away the knife, nodding at Ruby, who turned into an alley. "We're going to be training you on counter-espionage soon though."

Heart still in my throat, I followed Natasha towards our destination. It was a bar called Josie's as the red neon sign on the right window and the gold lettering on the left window said proudly. A bunch of motorcycles were parked out in front, a few tough guys standing around the front wearing their gang's colors on the jackets, or sewn onto their jeans. Nat calmly walked up and opened the door, the bikers ignoring us, and we stepped in.

The place was full of people, from all walks of life. They were drinking. Because I mean, it was a bar after all. The place smelled like piss and alcohol, with a slight aroma of vomit joining in. Someone had hung an air freshener near the door, like a drop of water added to the desert in terms of usefulness.

"Hey, Dial!" Foggy yelled from the back, coming up to grin at me. He was wearing his shirt and tie, the sleeves rolled up and a pool cue in his hand. "How's it-urk?" he stopped, blinking at the sight of Natasha, then smiling. "Black Widow?"

"Nat, actually," she said with a smile. "And you're Mr. Nelson, right?"

"Foggy, please," the pudgy and good-natured man said with that wide grin of his. "I can't call an Avenger by her name and have her call me 'Mr. Nelson.'"

Natasha blinked at that, then smiled that lazy and smooth smile she seemed to save for the right moments.

Foggy coughed, then waved at the back. "Ah, right this way, 'Nat'."

She walked past him, leaving Foggy to look over at me. "You couldn't have warned me?"

"That I was bringing her along?" I said with a cocked eyebrow. "Well, things are sort of getting crazy in New York City. She's acting as my bodyguard."

We joined Matt in the back, who was hesitantly feeling at a pool table, gently making sure of the placement of each ball on the green felt, dressed much the same as Foggy was at the moment, sleeves rolled up and all.

"Matt," Foggy said as we joined him. "He's here. And he brought a friend."

"Oh?" Matt cocked his head, not looking at us. "Hello, Mr. Schahed. And your friend is..."

"Natasha Romanov," the Black Widow told the future Daredevil.

Matt smiled. "Matthew Murdock. You're an Avenger, right?"

"And a few other things," Natasha responded.

Matt chuckled. "Mr. Schahed, you could have warned us you were bringing company, we would have met somewhere more... classy."

"This place is plenty classy!" Foggy said. "I mean, look, my drink has something alive in it!" he raised a beer, showing the shadowy shape in the dark yellow liquid. "You can't get that sort of exotic flavor anywhere else!"

"You don't like it, get out!" a woman behind the bar yelled.

"It's all part of your charm, Josie!" Foggy yelled back. He turned back to us. "Seriously, I don't recommend drinking the water here."

Natasha chuckled. "Don't worry, I've been in worse places. There was a bar in Budapest I can tell you stories about."

"Okay, so," Matt strolled around, carefully following the pool tables edge with his hands. Some of the patrons avoided him with what looked like practiced ease, one big biker moving a stool out of his way without a thought. "You said you wanted to hire us. We agree with your terms. We'll be your lawyers from now on, Mr. Schahed."

I grinned. "Cool. Uh, there is one, unexpected thing. We recently got a new Avenger, a woman named Jennifer Walters. She's a damn good lawyer, just did some work on the West Coast. She's looking to continue her work in law, and she was hoping she could talk to you guys about it," I held up my hands before they could speak. "I know how it looks, me adding a lawyer to your group right after I gave you my word that I wasn't going to interfere, but I swear, this is just me asking on her behalf. I told her what you guys want to do, and she wants to meet you."

Foggy and Matt shared a look. After a bit, Matt sighed. "Mr. Schahed, you say she's already a lawyer, right? Why can't she simply rejoin her firm?"

I rubbed the back of my head. "Just take my word for it. Besides, she wants to move here, do some work in this city. Doing it on the side of being an Avenger of course. Just meet her?"

Natasha spoke up. "I do suggest it. She recently took down Nicholas Trask. It was a hell of a thing. We were going to have her join BRIDGE's group of attorneys, but she wants to work with you."

Matt smiled. "That seems like a good idea. That said," Matt walked over to a table with their jackets and bags resting there, taking a familiar folder out and walking over to me in a series of slow and careful movements. It was kind of annoying, considering I knew for a fact the guy was better without eyes than I was with them, but I still managed to wait patiently as he handed me the folder. "We've both signed. You are officially the first client of Nelson and Murdock."

"I'm the first guy to give you money," I corrected him, opening the folder and smiling at the signatures. In some worlds, I bet a signature from Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson would be worth a hell of a lot. I closed the folder again. "Your first client will be whatever person you guys actually help with a case."

"Eh, you count," Foggy said easily. "So, business is done, how about we play a game or two?"

Natasha cocked an eyebrow. "Two on two with a blind man on one team? Isn't that a little unfair? No offense, Mr. Murdock."

"Uh, none taken, Mrs. Romanov," Matt said.

"Nat," she corrected.

"Nat," Matt showed her a charming smile. "Tell you what, you can be on my team, and I might surprise you."

"Oh come on," Foggy grumbled under his breath, though he smiled good-naturedly.

"What?" Matt asked, sounding confused.

Foggy shrugged. "Oh nothing, just seeing a pattern in play. Ok, I'll take the other Avenger then. Rack 'em up!"

After thoroughly getting my ass kicked alongside Foggy in pool, the friendly lawyer said his goodbyes and walked off into the night. With him gone, Matt lost his good humor. We stepped out of Josie's, walked down the street until we got to 47th Street, then turned into a dark alley.

Once inside, Matt listened for a moment.

"Someone is coming," he said.

"That's Ruby," Natasha looked down the alley. "Come here. You should listen to this part."

Soon, a short assassin teen came around the corner, flashing me a smirk. In retort, I carefully flashed the Omnitrix, and her smirk faded.

She looked over at Matt and scowled. "How the hell did you sense me?"

"He's a special case," Natasha explained. "I'll train you to do better later."

Matt looked uncertainly at her but listened again.

"Okay, we're in the clear," he looked between us. "So. Does she…"

"I know," Natasha said simply. "When Mahmoud asked me to bodyguard him, I checked up on you. You really are blind?"

Matt nodded.

"Then you have a lot more agility and spatial awareness than even most people with sight, even better than people in my profession. You hide it well. But every time I came close, you couldn't quite hide the reaction you gave about knowing exactly where I was," she mentioned, sounding honestly impressed.

Matt stared at us hesitantly. "Is this you asking me to become an Avenger?"

"Not really," Natasha said. "This is Mahmoud's deal. He asked me to keep what I hear a secret and to back him up just in case."

"You're his backup?" Matt asked, lips twitching. "No offense, but I've seen what you can do on the news, Mr. Schahed. What do you need backup from?"

"Snipers," I admitted. "Ninjas as well, just in case."

"Ninjas? In New York City?" Matt asked, disbelieving.

"Yes," I said simply. Ignoring the look on his face, I removed the large red backpack I'd been carrying and put it on the ground between us. "So. I, officially, can tell you that BRIDGE is working with New York City on developing a program for superhumans to aid police officers on patrol, as part of a plan to make such programs more of a permanent thing, as well as upgrading officers to deal with superhuman threats on their own as needed. A group of secret warriors, if you will," I need to stop stealing names from the main Marvel universe. "So you'll get an invite if you want it, and Maria Hill is going to make sure those who join can have the option to hide their identities."

Matt seemed to sag in relief at that. "That... that would be really nice."

"It's something we're still fighting for, but it should come soon," I added. "There will be some rules, something you'll have to do on the up and up, all in the name of letting you help people without worrying about cops shooting at you or guys getting out of prison by claiming they were beat up by a random vigilante on the street. But, until that time, you'll need something to protect you. Something better than a black shirt and scarf around your face."

He laughed nervously, looking over at Nat and Ruby. The redhead and blonde smirked at him.

"They won't talk," I said with a smile. "Trust me, Nat is good people. And Ruby won't do anything to piss Nat off."

"Screw you," Ruby said to me without looking.

"Gain a few feet first, midget," I answered back, getting a disgusted scoff in return. Brat.

"Anyways, I made you this."

I tapped the top of the red backpack. The catoms that made up the backpack flowed up my arm, revealing what was held within.

A costume lay on the pavement before Matt, folded neatly on the ground. He kneeled down and put his hand against the helmet, blinking. "Is this-?"

"A suit, custom made for you," I answered. "I could give you any advanced gear you feel might be missing but of course nothing BRIDGE uses. But the suit is bullet, fire, and slash resistant. It'll take a lot of damage and leave you bruised at most, but it's also made to let you move with all the agility of, well, the three of you," I gestured at the three badasses around me, Ruby smiling proudly. "It's also got a feature to let you close off your hearing in case anyone tries to use it against you. Like I said, it's not the best we've got, but-"

"No," Matt smiled, lifting the suit to 'look' at it. The combination of dark yellow and red colors seemed to work well, a pair of small devil horns attached to the helmet. He briefly touched the clubs resting at the waist of the costume. "It's perfect. Thank you. And these clubs?"

"It's all in here," I tossed him a flash drive, which he snatched out of the air. "It's got a manual to let you know everything they can do, even has a printable version in braille for yourself. It ain't an Iron Man suit, but it's damn good... Daredevil," I started seriously. "There are some people, in Hell's Kitchen, that I want to check up on tomorrow night..."

"...Where should we meet?" Matt asked.

"In a minute, but before we go any further there is something I want to do and I think you would really appreciate it." I started to say and couldn't keep the huge grin off my face.

"Yeah? Any more toys for me? Sadly, state law says blind men can't drive, so I will have to turn down a devilmobile," he joked but still seemed interested.

"You'll like this better, this wouldn't be in the news but the forms I turn into are actually different kinds of aliens." Natasha made a noise of annoyance at me casually sharing such 'privileged' information since BRIDGE was keeping it under wraps under the excuse of worrying the public, despite the fact these aliens don't exist in this universe as far as I knew. I ignored her. "The one I'm about to use is one I think you will have an instant connection with," I said, and before he could respond to that I quickly activated the Omnitrix and pressed down the selection I had set beforehand.

In a flash of green I was covered in orange fur, standing on four powerful legs, had an impressive set of teeth, and of course, my eyesight disappeared even as my vision expanded more fully than my human senses could ever achieve. While everyone else looked away from bright flash Matt obviously didn't and was quick to 'see' the change I had undergone. He hesitated for a second before reaching his hands out and feeling around Wildmutt's head where the eyes would be on most other creatures before pulling back.

"No eyes, so that means…" Matt worked it out quickly and Nat answered for him.

"Wildmutt seems to rely more on smell than echolocation like you, but that doesn't mean his hearing is any lesser for it well," Nat said with what I assumed was a smirk from Matt's likely gobsmacked expression.

Ruby smelled annoyed as she spoke under her breath. "Why did my life get so weird lately…?"

Was it weird that Wildmutt seemed able to smell emotions? Likely worked better on other Vulpimancers, but I couldn't help but let out a series of barks that would be laughs with human vocal cords.