T’Challa sits in his throne watching the mess that is his love life somehow become a part of Wakanda’s larger politics. Tony, for his part, doesn’t look happy about it and obviously makes an effort to defend T’Challa.
“You don’t even get our relationship- you think your king kneels for me? Because he doesn’t.” T’Challa knows where and why his words go wrong because the Council, his mother, the rest of the country- they don’t make that distinction. He is the king; there is no difference between T’Challa and the position he holds.
“What you are saying doesn’t even make sense-”
“He does-”
“You don’t understand Wakanda-”
T’Challa nods to Okoye and Ayo, who bounce their staffs off the ground. The sound resonates throughout the room and blessedly everyone shuts up. He looks around, managing to make eye contact with most everyone in the room before he speaks. “The problem, as I understand it, is that you believe that if I am submissive in my relationship with Tony that will reflect a submissiveness to America, yes?” he asks, in English for Tony’s benefit. Try as he might he’s horrific at Wakandan, and he hastried. He’s no better at Xhosa, the closest language to Wakandan in the outside world.
No one in the room talks, unwilling to voice what they all think. T’Challa waits a few beats; intentionally letting them stew in their own discomfort, before speaking again. “If any of you truly believe that I am, by nature, predisposed to allow anyone access to the throne because I am a submissive than you will challenge me to the throne under the guise of being unfit to lead,” he tells them, anger snapping at his tone. No one moves, no one even makes eye contact except for Tony, who looks enthused by this. He scans the room again but people remain unwilling to look at him. “I’m waiting,” he tells them.
Even Okoye shifts uncomfortably at that. No one says a word and he stands, “if you are unwilling to challenge me to the throne due to your concerns than your concerns are not worth my time. Enough.”
It’s a harsh statement, not usually one he’d make so easily but the reason for their concerns are not borne of genuine worries, they’re borne out of discrimination and he refuses to stand for that. There has never been a submissive on the throne, and he is not going to allow people to use that as a pointed barb to criticize his rule. And over a relationship of all things.
He wonders if he were a Dominant and Tony were a sub if they would all assume that his relationship would equal an automatic dominance over America or if they would revert back to finding Tony threatening simply because he’s a foreigner. He suspects he knows the answer already.
*
Tony sits perched on T’Challa’s back, gently kneading the muscles there while he tries to relax. “In America-” he starts but T’Challa cuts him off.
“This is not America, Tony,” he says.
Yeah, so he keeps getting reminded every ten fucking seconds. He gets the suspicion to a point, but to a larger extent these people need to calm the hell down. “I know, but the concept seems like it’ll cross cultures well enough. People have done studies on stereotype threat- the idea that if you’re confronted with negative stereotypes about some faucet of your identity, in this case your being a sub, than your performance will suffer. I don’t actually know how you’re doing, not in a Wakandan context anyways, and there’s some debate on how much this influences performance in real-world contexts. But I do think being under constant scrutiny due stereotypes probably increases your stress levels significantly even if your performance doesn’t suffer at all.”
Usually T’Challa is never this tense, and Tony knows he’s a fantastic problem solver among other traits that lend themselves naturally to his position as king. And, this may be key; he’s not actually all that submissive. People used to think that being a Dom or a sub automatically meant you had dominant or submissive personalities but studies have shown that to be pretty untrue. Shocker of all shocks- people have varying personalities regardless of whether or not they’re a Dom or a sub. And switches never fit into that model but people stick Dom and sub on a binary where they’re opposites rather than situational positions, but whatever.
Point is he’s pretty sure T’Challa is suffering because people can’t shut the fuck up about him being a damn sub. When they’d met T’Challa had said Wakanda was pretty much past any discrimination subs used to get, that its usually switches who get the brunt of the discrimination due to the strange notion that they’re two opposite things at once. Tony thinks maybe he underestimated lingering social anxieties. T’Challa is the first sub in Wakanda’s history to be on the throne- whether or not people actively discriminate against subs now that kind of change will have to dredge up old bad habits.
T’Challa sighs underneath him. “How did you even come across this theory?” he asks and Tony grins.
“I read. Also Pepper brought it up once so I looked it up.” That, and he’d found it useful when he’d been diagnosed as bipolar and then suddenly everything he did became a symptom of that in the eyes of the public. Except ninety percent of the shit they were all on about had nothing to do with being bipolar. It never really did anything to his performance per se, he’s always been good at his job and frankly on a bad day he’s still better than everyone who isn’t Shuri. But it did stress him out a lot when he seemingly couldn’t do anything that wasn’t explained by bipolar. To add insult to injury not one person who tried to explain his behavior away even seemed to know what the hell being bipolar even means.
T’Challa hums, “maybe you have a point,” he murmurs. He remains silent for a few more moments before talking again. “I didn’t expect this when I took the throne.”
Yeah, Tony got that impression. “To be fair,” he says, “that was one fuckof a power move in the throne room. And their opinions that your being submissive somehow means that whoever your with will basically rule the country? That’s some seriously offensive shit. I see stuff like that in America all the time.” Subs can’t rule, they’re naturally submissive so obviously their Doms would be the one’s actually pulling the strings. It’s fucking ignorant, not to mention it totally strips subs of both an identity outside their Doms and their personal autonomy. And, as usual, switches were lost in translation.
“I expected better out of Wakanda,” T’Challa murmurs sadly. “And yet they mimic America’s anti-submissive sentiments without ever realizing the irony of it.”
They’re afraid of foreign influence but seem to adopt more American ideals when it suits them, yeah. To be fair there are plenty of people who support T’Challa too, Nakia being the accidental head of that movement. Tony likes her- she’s fun and just as much of a troublemaker as he is though she thinks things through a little better than he does. T’Challa had been surprised when they got along but Tony isn’t in the habit of being threatened by other Doms. So what if they had a past relationship- if T’Challa wanted to be with her she’s a way safer option than him, way less hassle in just Wakanda’s reactions to their relationship alone. He’d choose her if that’s what he wanted and he didn’t so Tony’s not going to dwell on it.
“True. Challenging them all to the throne though? That was inspired.”
T’Challa laughs, “not especially- that is just Wakanda’s way. What they were claiming is that I was unfit to rule- when we have unfit rulers that is what we do. They were unwilling to issue a challenge and that tells me they know their concerns are unfounded and, probably on some level, offensive. If their concerns were genuine I wouldn’t have had to issue the challenge at all. They would have done it themselves.”
Tony sits back a little, running his hands down T’Challa’s back. Damn, he’s stunning. “American politics could use some fist fights. I’d pay a shit ton of money to watch Obama punch Mitt Romney out.” And that’s an old election- he’d pay even more money to watch current candidates beat the hell out of each other. Though he’s pretty sure America would go full Hunger Games and start some crazy shit like in the Purge or something but before all that the wholesome watching political candidates battle each other out would be hilarious. People would lose wigs, rings, clothing- all kinds of stuff.
Something tells him that Wakanda’s version of a fight is a lot more civilized than America’s.
T’Challa snorts, “America should not adopt our ways- your country would do something insane like give each other chain saws and have them battle naked or something equally disturbing,” he says, echoing Tony’s previous thoughts.
*
Nakia looks absolutely enthused and Tony nods. “Right? I almost laughed but I didn’t think people would like that much,” he says.
“Probably a good call,” she says. “What did their faces look like?” she asks, eyes glittering brightly with excitement and amusement.
Tony grins, “like they were a bunch of toddlers that got spanked by their king. Fucking hilarious. I wish American politics were as funny as a bunch of people being challenged to the Wakandan throne.” Instead their politics were a flat out joke, but not the kind you can laugh at.
Nakia raises an eyebrow, “America made a whole meme out of one of your presidential candidates being a serial killer despite it being impossible. American politics are hilarious to anyone watching. And also terrifying because you insist on involving yourselves in everyone’s business and you’re clearly the unstable uncle someone thought they should invite to world politics because he’d show up drunk anyways.”
Shit, yeah. “I guess, but Wakandan politics are funnier and mostly only affect this country so you know.” They sit in silence for a moment before Tony speaks again. “How do last names work here?” he asks. T’Challa doesn’t have one, he knows, but he has no idea if that’s a royal family thing, a T’Challa specific thing, or a thing that’s Wakanda-wide.
“Is that relevant to you?” Nakia asks, frowning.
He sighs, “I mean, not especially. But if I were to propose…”
“He wouldn’t take your last name. No offense, its just that people here wouldn’t react to that well,” Nakia says.
Tony figured, “I got that, but how do names work here?”
Nakia sighs and rolls her eyes at him fondly. “Usually one partner will take the other’s first name as their last name. Obviously that’s skewed heavily in favor of subs taking the names of Doms. It’s falling out of favor in recent times, but its still popular enough that not doing that is unusual.”
Hmm, well that’s neat. “Cool. Wakanda have anything against rings?”
*
When T’Challa hands the ring back Tony is pretty sure he shits his own heart out but then he laughs. “I’m sorry, its not funny- you so dejected. I’m not saying no, but I want a collar,” he says.
Tony’s eyebrows fly up because what? “People are not going to react to that well,” he says. He chose rings intentionally to be inoffensive and also because collars are somewhat controversial in America too. Tony doesn’t personally care, but he can see why some groups do.
T’Challa shakes his head, “I don’t care. I refuse to make myself as little a sub as possible simply to make people more comfortable. They will accept that I am a sub, and that sometimes I do things that subs do. I should not have to give those things up because people think I am lesser for engaging in them- their bias should not be my problem.”
So he’s going to rub their nose in it? Okay, power move, but one Tony is going to get internationally slammed for this. He sighs, “alright, but people are really not going to like that.”
T’Challa shrugs, “then perhaps they should confront their bias and deal with it rather than assuming wearing a necklace, for all intents and purposes, makes me lesser than you.”
Well, if anyone can pull this off its T’Challa.
*
“That looks good on him,” Shuri says, grinning. She finds the entire controversy hilarious mostly because she and T’Challa have an understanding with each other, and with the separation Tony and T’Challa make between his position as king and his position in their relationship. There’s plenty of bleeding into one another, but that’s to be expected. Point is T’Challa the King is not T’Challa the Sub. But people here like to assume those two things are all he is, so it makes sense that they get conflated.
T’Challa sits perched on his throne, taking up the whole space of it easily with the collar around his neck. Not a single person in the room is comfortable with it and he damn well knows it, glaring down at them from his seat, daring them to say something about it. Obviously no one does, but Tony knows they all want to and everyone else seems to have an opinion on it elsewhere but they learned fast T’Challa wasn’t playing their games. It helps, Tony thinks, that T’Challa is so dominantin everything he does.
Even his submission style has an edge of dominance to it; something he’s said has intimidated Doms that weren’t him or Nakia his whole life. It makes not taking his opinion on matters like his collar seriously difficult. It also helps that almost every comment or question he’s gotten about it is rooted in assumptions of inferiority and T’Challa is quick to pounce on it, to force people to consider why they’ve asked something that assumes he’s lesser. People, so far, have not like being forcefully confronted on their bias.
“My favorite thing about him is that basically everything he does is a power move,” Tony says, grinning up at T’Challa with pride. For a moment T’Challa smiles back, a small crack in his current king armor, before he goes back to silently asking people to say something stupid.
“I can’t believe he went with a collar. He’s always found them offensive,” Shuri says and what?
“Are you telling me I got slammed for trying to keep a black dude as a slave on Twitter because T’Challa intentionally chose a symbol of submissiveness even he finds offensive?”
Shrui smiles forcefully, “every move he makes is a power move?” she throws out, clearly not believing her own argument.
Tony crosses his arms over his chest and glares at T’Challa, who covers his mouth with his hand as he starts to laugh. Okay, rude. He is so explaining to people that Tony has no fucking intent on keeping anyone as a slave and that T’Challa is a fucking king- he’s no one’s inferior.