Inimitable

Tony recognizes the science book thanks to the images on the covers, but the book with the weird looking wolf thing on the front is what catches his attention. Twenty minutes later he’s curled into himself laughing at the absurd theories Wakandans came up with for what is essentially a genetic freak of nature that, like most things in Wakanda, had been altered by the vibranium mountain. As it turns out the mountain altered the DNA of the wildlife around it, which is interesting on its own, but the added theories of foreign governments trying to wipe Wakanda out with weird ginger wolves pretty much just because they look weird is the icing on the cake.

He gets up and goes over to the shared bathroom door and knocks on it. “T’Challa, have you actually read this book? The red wolf conspiracy alone makes this thing worth it but the fact that it takes itself so seriously despite spouting unfounded bullshit makes it even better!” he says, snickering. He jumps when the door opens almost immediately after he speaks, revealing T’Challa looking entirely too happy.

“What?” he asks, frowning self consciously.

“You look too happy to have heard my comment on this ridiculous conspiracy book. Have you read the one on the Jabari being the Wakandan equivalent of Bigfoot?” he asks, laughing to himself again.

T’Challa frowns, “what is ‘Bigfoot’?” he asks.

“Big ape kind of thing that’s more humanoid than not,” he explains and the information obviously clicks with T’Challa.

“Yes, that conspiracy is rather offensive to the Jabari. Just because they live in the mountains doesn’t mean they’re beasts,” he says, shaking his head.

“Okay but the one right after that claims Wakanda is its own dimension that’s sitting parallel to some other shittier dimension though. I mean that’s one way to look at the rest of the world outside of your country but wow is that a stretch,” he says, shaking his head. It’s pretty hilarious to read though, especially when that theory starts going into technology and the supposed force field around Wakanda that apparently acts as an interdimensional barrier between the country and the ‘other’ dimension.

T’Challa lets out a pained sigh. “Please don’t judge the country by our conspiracy nuts, we do not deserve that,” he says, looking vaguely distressed by this possibility.

Tony snorts, “oh these are nothing compared to America’s conspiracies. If they ever find out about Wakanda and the vibranium they will one hundred percent blame you for the world going to shit and claim it was some kind of bid for world domination evidence be damned. I am personally thrilled to know they will label me an accomplice in America’s demise,” he says, grinning. Who really cared about the rest of the world, or that Russia didn’t seem to suffer as much as others had, or that central parts of land masses minus tornado ally also fared well all things considered. Evidence either didn’t matter or was easily fabricated for the extreme end of conspiracy theorists.

T’Challa tilts his head to the side, “are you really that angry with your country?” he asks and there’s a touch of judgment to it. Not exactly surprising, Tony figures, from a group of people that has spent as much time as Wakanda has with nothing but itself. It’s the same reason Tony puts more faith in himself than most anything else around him.

“Yeah, I am, but I never put much faith in America to begin with. I was born on a rock, why have any pride or loyalty in that? I prefer having faith in things I have actual control of, things I did myself, not stupid shit like having faith in a flawed system just because I happen to live on that section of land. Its fickle at best- I live in Wakanda now and frankly it’s a hell of a lot better than what I’m used to. Nationalism tells me to ignore that and hold faith in America, logic tells me to hold faith in what’s proven to be best. Also I’m petty,” he says. The last bit is true, but it’s the first bit that he holds the most faith in. When people talked about their countries he finds them too unwilling to examine systems that work better than the ones they live in, hung up on pride in such an arbitrary thing like country of origin. His logic lies in evidence, method, and careful examination. Critical thinking directly conflicts with nationalistic ideals at least for him. Rhodey probably disagrees but that’s his problem.

“You believe that Wakanda is better than your home country? Even with the way people have treated you?” T’Challa asks, frowning.

He shrugs, “still better than America, but half of that is probably because I don’t understand the language.” The other half is due to his freshly Howard- free life. It isn’t something he expected when he came here but now that he’s here it’s been… pleasant to not have to live with Howard’s standards.

“I’m surprised you haven’t learned at least some things already- you’re gifted in language. You know how to speak five that I know of,” T’Challa says.

Tony sighs, “probably would have learned something if I had been paying attention to the translations but most of what I’ve picked up are probably swear words.” Rhodey likes to joke that Tony always learned the fastest way to offend someone in any given language before anything else and in his defense he’s not exactly wrong. So what little Wakandan he’s picked up is probably a series of words that are rude at best, offensive at worst. “Shuri seems to have a hard time translating words to English so maybe that’s why I haven’t learned much,” he adds, figuring if someone as smart as Shuri is stumped it makes sense that he might be too.

T’Challa laughs softly though, “Shuri is not good with languages. She’s only fluent in two- math and technology are the languages she prefers and Wakandan is particularly difficult to translate to English. Compared to our language English is… unwieldy and clumsy. Wakandan is… beautiful, for lack of a better way to describe it.”

So Tony knows- he’s heard the language spoken all around him and ultimately it sounds stunning the same way Spanish does. Tony is fond of the way Italian sounds too, but that’s probably biased considering his Italian background. But T’Challa’s mention of the difficult to translate language sparks an idea for Tony. “The translation issues, would that give a person a lack of understanding when reading about new concepts? Because I’m at science, very good even if its not me field of study, but I have no fucking clue what your science looks like because it makes no damn sense.” Or at least the translations don’t.

T’Challa frowns for a moment before he retreats into his room, returning with a text in his hand and he skims it. “Yeah, this would make no sense in English. And what would form coherent sentences would do little to provide context for the rest because the literal translations are… lacking,” he says.

He’s going to regret this, he knows he’s going to regret this, but as usual he makes an impulsive decision. “Can you teach me? The language I mean,” he clarifies.

The last thing he expects if for T’Challa to look delighted.

*

As a general rule Tony has made the assumption that Wakandans don’t know English, or at least not many of them do. His evidence is that he hasn’t heard anyone speak the language so when someone addresses him in English and the voice isn’t familiar he jumps in surprise, frowning as he looks around. “It was me who spoke,” an older woman says and Tony’s eyebrows draw together.

“You speak English?” he asks, surprised more than anything.

The woman smiles slyly, “most of us do, but we have little use for the language here most of the time. Americans,” she says, shaking her head a little.

“What would you know about America?” he asks, more confused. Why learn a language the country has less than no use for? T’Challa and Shuri make sense, or at least in recent events learning the language makes sense, because they will have to deal with international affairs. Random citizens, not so much.

His question gets him another knowing smile, “more than you think. Shame California sunk, I rather liked the West Coast,” she says and Tony frowns, trying to do the math on the woman’s possible age. By his estimations the youngest she can be is old as fuck. “How are you?” she asks, apparently done skirting around whatever subject she’s looking to get to.

He raises an eyebrow, not sure how to take that. “Uh, fine I guess,” he says honestly. It occurs to him that if she asked him that three weeks ago he would have given a totally different response but now… well, he is fine. Shuri is hilarious and happy to teach him about her technology and they’ve discovered that he has a talent for software that she doesn’t have. Or at least she thinks she doesn’t have the talent- Tony has faith in her abilities. They also discovered that they share similar ideologies in regards to progress technologically and otherwise. And T’Challa… well he’s actually pretty lovely. He’s patient, a little shy due to being unused to being disliked, but he’s also willing to accommodate for Tony. Its not what he expected and he doesn’t really know how to react. How does a person react to being treated well when they expected blatant mistreatment? He supposes grateful would be most people’s response, but he doesn’t like the idea of being grateful for basic human decency. Which leaves him at a loss mostly.

“Are you?” the woman asks and Tony’s eyebrows draw back together again.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks.

She considers him for a moment, “well, you were used as a method of trade between countries. I understand this treatment is fairly normal to you but here we don’t accept that kind of treatment here. I can’t imagine what T’Chaka was thinking.” She mumbles the last bit more to herself than Tony and he raises an eyebrow, surprised at her speaking out against the king. He’s gathered that that’s unusual for Wakanda given how the king is generally received by those around him. What surprises him more is the obvious nature of the respect people have for the king- respect that’s not generated out of fear either. Its clear the king treats his people well and its just as clear that they dislike disagreeing with him.

But they don’t really know the whole story. “I appreciate the worry but the king has his reasons, though we’re in agreement on his methods. I don’t care for the way I got here but being here isn’t so bad.” Two weeks ago that would have been painful to admit but he’s always been an evidence-based thinker. The evidence has shown him that, despite the absolute disrespect in his being traded off for political ends, neither T’Chaka nor T’Challa took any kind of interest in personally tormenting him. Or any other omega for that matter.

His companion looks surprised at this, “you don’t buy into your culture’s assumption that you’re lesser for being an omega,” she states more than asks.

Tony shakes his head. “I’m a scientist- I look for evidence before I believe whatever I hear. There’s no evidence omegas are lesser in any other condition than the ones that remind them that they’re considered worthless.”

“An internalized bias based on stereotypes. Its something we figured out when our omegas came back with some strange opinions,” she says. Tony squints because where were the omegas coming back from? And obviously their opinions didn’t last given the general culture around them here.

“America is still in the dark,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. “I’m curious though, why ask if I’m okay?”

She considers him for a moment before sighing. “Wakanda wanted nothing to do with you marrying T’Challa. truth be told I’m not sure he agreed either, but he loves his father like most of the rest of us do. Half of the country wanted nothing to do with the potential ramifications of opening up to the world, but the other half thought marrying off an omega to royalty was archaic and offensive. It sends the wrong message to our omega population- that our rights are only there when convenient to the king. So I wanted to see if you’re okay,” she says.

Tony lets out a sharp laugh, nodding. “I like you. Had I met you a month ago I probably wouldn’t have hated it here so much because that was great. Pretty sure T’Chaka was self aware in his decision though, which doesn’t do much to excuse it, but at least he didn’t make the decision pretending like it was the right thing to do. He just took the easy way out,” Tony says but without malice. It seems to ruffle the feathers of his companion nonetheless but not much.

“Whatever his ends are, will they work?” she asks and Tony nods.

“They’re dependent on me, so yeah they’ll work. Besides America had ends of their own when they sent me here, not sure what exactly but I can hazard a few guesses. They aren’t going to get what they’re looking for. That’s what they get for trading me for political ties,” he says, anger leaking into his tone a little on that last bit. He’s earned that though.

“Dependent on you?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

“More or less. He uh, let me in on a few secrets Wakanda has- said he wanted to put me on equal footing with T’Challa. He’s a good man even if his politics could use a little work,” he says.

*

T’Challa does not want to press his luck but he’s not exactly known for curbing his impulses. Or at least he used to be known for his lack of impulse control, now that’s less common behavior for him. He knocks on Tony’s door, surprised when he answers it right away and even more surprised when Tony actually looks pleased to see him. Of course that’s where it all goes wrong and instead of responding like a normal human he lets out this wheeze noise, “hi,” he finally squeaks out, reminded of the time he did literally the exact same thing to poor Nakia and he curses his stupid mind for betraying him like this.

Tony bursts out laughing though, “now there’s some of the alpha stupidity I was expecting. Come in, I’m trying to translate words,” he says, grinning at T’Challa in a way he’s never gotten before.

“Did you… talk to someone or something?” he asks, confused by the lack of suspicion he usually gets from Tony.

“I did- lovely older woman with some interesting political opinions that explained some omega history to me. And the history of the Dora Milaje, which I think is fascinating. Anyways since it’d be a lot easier to just read on the subjects instead of happening across random citizens I figured I should maybe work on learning the language,” Tony says, walking over to a large pile of papers spread around his bed. Interesting considering he shares a preoccupation with technology with Shuri. “What?” he asks, obviously noticing T’Challa looking at the papers. “Writing it down helps me remember things better- that’s science. Plus I don’t really like language learning programs so,” he says, shrugging at the papers.

Out of curiosity T’Challa picks up one of the papers and looks over it, wrinkling his nose immediately. “Oh it can’t be that far off,” Tony says in his own defense.

T’Challa gives the paper a sad look, “I have met cats that can translate better than this,” he says and Tony makes an offended noise.

“It so isn’t that bad!” he says, scandalized.

“If you were intentionally trying to say that goose peanuts are reaching orgasm than no, you’re not that bad,” he says..

Tony frowns at the paper before taking it back. “There’s no way that’s what that- how the hell could I have managed to screw up that bad?” he asks softly.

“What were you trying to translate?” T’Challa asks.

“My name,” Tony admits, looking away in shame and rightly so considering T’Challa really has no choice but to start laughing.

“I am introducing you as ‘goose peanuts reaching orgasm’ now because that is hilarious,” he says.

Offended Tony snatches the nearest paper off his bed and hands it to T’Challa, “fine, your new name can be whatever I wrote on that,” he says. T’Challa takes the paper and looks at it, wincing.

“I can’t say that in public,” he says, wondering how Tony managed to mangle his language so badly.

His reaction interests Tony though because he all but leaps forward to see his own words, looking at the paper in T’Challa’s hand like it would help him understand the language he clearly has no grasp on. “What’s it say?” he asks.

“I am not telling you, you’d say it and then I’d have an entire country of people angry with me for teaching you offensive terms,” he says. That’s a headache he has no interest in but Tony continues to pester him, obviously invested in offending the Wakandan public.