Karl had been thoroughly bored lately.
With nothing better to do, he wandered all over the city, sometimes even tagging along with Peter on his patrols across New York. Though to be precise, Peter did all the actual crime-fighting—Karl merely watched from the sidelines.
Purely for entertainment.
Natasha, on the other hand, had grown busy again. She was rarely seen around the apartment these days. No one knew what S.H.I.E.L.D. was scheming this time.
Her role was no longer limited to monitoring Karl. After witnessing his newest summoned form, Nick Fury had decisively raised Karl's threat level once again. It now far surpassed even the Hulk's—placing him at the highest priority tier.
Previously, Natasha submitted reports every half month. Now, it had become once every three days—whenever she was at the apartment, at least. When she was out on missions, reporting was temporarily suspended.
The surveillance, however, was not.
Fury had assigned other agents to take over in her absence.
Karl was fully aware of this. He and Fury had already come to an agreement: surveillance was acceptable—but if anyone appeared in front of him, he would immediately send them to meet their maker.
Fury knew Karl meant it. He had explicitly instructed the agents to remain out of sight and observe from a distance.
But S.H.I.E.L.D. agents… how many were truly loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D.?
Most of them secretly answered to Hydra.
On the surface, they obeyed Fury. In reality, they followed Alexander Pierce.
And Pierce coveted Karl's power.
After witnessing Karl's new form, his desire had only intensified. He wanted Karl under Hydra's control—reshaped into their ultimate weapon.
Thus, Pierce ordered the two agents monitoring Karl to find an opportunity to make contact.
The order left them in an impossible position.
Their clearance level was nowhere near sufficient to approach Karl directly. Moreover, Fury had clearly warned them not to show themselves—observe only from afar.
They were not fools. They understood exactly what Fury's warning implied.
But as Hydra operatives, Pierce's command was absolute.
So they began searching for an opportunity.
Karl, meanwhile, remained completely unaware.
The timeline of events had long since veered off course. He could no longer predict what would happen next and could only identify situations as they unfolded.
At that moment, the bored Karl was sitting beside Skye, watching her type code at blistering speed.
The endless strings of English characters made his eyes ache.
She ignored him entirely, fingers flying across the keyboard.
"Didn't your head hurt when you were learning this stuff? What even is all this chaos?" Karl muttered, rubbing his temples.
He recognized every single word individually—but when strung together, it might as well have been alien script.
"If you're that bored, go outside. Just stop disturbing me, okay?" Skye finally snapped.
Karl had been sitting beside her all day, constantly asking questions she couldn't fully explain without derailing her workflow. She was beginning to consider blasting him out of the office with a shockwave.
Karl cast her a wounded look.
If he had somewhere better to go, he wouldn't be wasting his life here.
Tony was locked in his lab around the clock, too engrossed in developing a new armor system to even answer calls.
Peter roamed the streets daily.
Gwen split her time between research at Stark Industries and occasionally moonlighting as Ghost-Spider.
Frank was nowhere to be seen—likely lurking in some dark room preparing to deal a fatal blow to another criminal syndicate.
Matt had become a well-known attorney, drowning in cases.
Wanda was at Kamar-Taj, at a critical stage of training—Karl didn't dare interrupt.
Coulson and Barton were perpetually on missions.
Who else could he possibly bother?
Wakanda, perhaps?
T'Challa and Shuri?
Karl paused.
Actually… that wasn't a bad idea.
As king, T'Challa surely wouldn't be buried in mundane tasks. And aside from her research, Shuri had little else going on. More importantly, Wakanda was vast—and breathtakingly beautiful.
Perfect for leisurely wandering.
Decision made, Karl stood up immediately. With the Chocobo Space, distance meant nothing. He could arrive instantly.
He called T'Challa.
As it turned out, the king was also painfully bored—currently idling in Shuri's lab.
The two hit it off immediately.
Under Skye's visibly relieved gaze, Karl vanished in an instant—without even stepping outside the office.
The two Hydra agents had no idea he had left. After all, there were no S.H.I.E.L.D. surveillance devices anywhere inside the apartment complex.
---
"Karl, you finally came," T'Challa said with a sigh. "I had no idea being king would be this dull. All minor matters are handled before they even reach me. I just sign documents like some ceremonial mascot."
He looked genuinely dejected.
He had imagined leading Wakanda into a bold new era. Instead, daily affairs ran so smoothly that there was barely anything for him to do. Major crises were nonexistent. Diplomacy was quiet. The United Nations was in recess.
Most days, he either visited Shuri's lab—or sparred with Erik in the palace.
Erik had not been imprisoned. Instead, he was confined within the royal palace grounds, his movements restricted but not entirely curtailed.
After learning the full truth about the conflict between King T'Chaka and his father, Erik had come to terms with it. It had been a clash of ideology. His father had indeed been radical.
He no longer sought vengeance.
But he still refused to accept T'Challa as king.
In Erik's view, T'Challa was too soft-hearted—ill-suited for the brutal realities of international politics. Having once served in America's elite special forces, Erik understood war intimately. Between nations, kindness was often mistaken for weakness.
And to the world, Wakanda still appeared to be a poor, agrarian nation.
An easy target.
Every time T'Challa visited, their conversations inevitably devolved into sparring. They would leave bruised and battered—yet somehow, that had become routine.
Notably, Erik's hostility had softened over time. His aggression was no longer as sharp. He could coexist peacefully with others—except T'Challa. Even Okoye had begun to revise her opinion of him.
---
In the lab, Karl and T'Challa sat side by side, each holding a cup of tea, watching as Shuri upgraded the Black Panther suit.
"I've enhanced the armor's defensive capabilities—especially around the joints," Shuri explained, displaying the updated design on a large screen.
The overall aesthetic remained consistent with T'Challa's understated style. However, its defensive strength had been significantly improved without sacrificing flexibility.
After all, the Black Panther's greatest strength lay in agility.
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