Inimitable

Everett looks unimpressed, T’Challa notes, but Tony looks pretty damn pleased with himself. They do, in fact, have Klaw in custody and something tells T’Challa that this is all too easy. The man has evaded escape from Wakanda for thirty years and he’s somehow managed to fall right in their laps now? Something is going to go wrong and he can see that Okoye is also prepared for that to happen. He’s happy that he’s not the only one to think the simplicity is not going to last.

“You’ve got nothing on me now, Stark. Do not expect another favor,” Everett tells him and Tony snorts.

“Oh yeah, I’ve got nothing on you but the fact that you helped another country get their hands on a wanted terrorist,” Tony points out. “You’re still going to be in my debt for life,” he says, pointing at the cameras in the room. Everett lets out a string of impressive swear words and glares at Tony.

“You’re a real prick, you know that?” he asks and Tony shrugs.

“Guilty as charged. Just saying it was stupid that you thought you’d escape being on my list of people to blackmail later. I mean you’re probably next to useless to me after this but still, I have a lot of dirt on you,” he says.

“I hope you know that is what you chose to marry,” W’Kabi mumbles at him, face dark with suspicion.

T’Challa rolls his eyes, “obviously I know that is who I chose to marry. I would like to remind you that you’re currently benefitting from ‘that’ being who I married.” The entire country is benefitting from Tony now not that W’Kabi seems to see it that way. It annoys T’Challa greatly that that W’Kabi can benefit from Tony’s presence without actually admitting that Tony is helping him, especially when he acts like Tony’s presence is somehow a personal slight against him.

“Had your father agreed to do this years ago we wouldn’t have needed his help,” W’Kabi fires back but this time its Okoye who rolls her eyes. T’Challa raises an eyebrow at the General’s unusual response but wisely keeps his mouth shut.

“You think we could have gotten into an American government building completely undetected while various other people caused distractions to intentionally make people look away from what we’re currently doing? You’re a damn fool if you think we could have pulled that off this quietly. We would have made a mess and exposed what and who we are to the world all because of your ridiculous personal vendetta!” she hisses, shaking her head angrily.

“He killed my parents!” W’Kabi snaps at her. Bad move, T’Challa thinks, but its W’Kabi’s funeral.

“So you think it’s a good idea to put Wakanda at risk chasing revenge? Don’t speak, I have no time for your excuses,” she tells him, holding up her hand when W’Kabi goes to speak again. T’Challa looks away, trying and failing not to smile at that. Okoye never has been the type to put up with nonsense. When he was young she had been recently appointed to her position- the youngest to achieve such a position too, and he had decided foolishly to press his limits. To say she put him in his place is something of an understatement, but he appreciates the experience. It let him know who Okoye is as a person and he really had deserved the punch he got for his efforts.

*

Klaw isn’t exactly what Tony expected but in his defense a large singing dude with a prosthetic arm probably isn’t what anyone expected. Or that absurd sounding accent. Or maybe it only sounds absurd because he’s singing- not that it matters either way because this did not seem the type of man to be able to pull off one of the most impressive crimes Wakanda has ever seen. He can see why help was needed and he’d look into T’Challa’s family tree later- he’s sure he’ll find what he’s looking for pretty much immediately.

“That isn’t even a good song,” Everett tells him, rolling his eyes. Tony is inclined to agree, but he keeps quiet. Off to the side of the room Rhodey looks suspicious; like he’s waiting for something to happen and in his defense they’re all waiting for this to get… difficult. In Tony’s experience things don’t usually go this well and Rhodey had said he had a hell of a time catching the guy because he had some fancy tech. What Rhodey doesn’t know is that the tech was probably Wakandan and no one is going to fill him in on that. The only reason he’s here at all is because Tony had him pick up a couple things from his lab and Rhodey hadn’t been impressed that Tony had been planning to intentionally not include him.

“So where are we going, boys?” he asks, grinning like he knows this is going to go his way. Tony and Everett exchange a look, wondering what he knows that they obviously don’t.

“Presumably to your death,” Tony says somewhat evasively. He wonders who’s holding W’Kabi back because, as much as Tony is quickly growing to like him less and less the more time he’s stuck with the guy, he does have sympathy for his position.

“A little birdy has told me that’s not going to happen,” Klaw says and Tony squints, trying to make sense of this moron with little success.

“Pretty sure your little birdy has bad information,” Rhodey tells him from across the room.

“Why don’t you let me out of these cuffs and we’ll see?” Klaw asks in a voice that’s almost… sweet? Everett looks back over at him again and Tony shrugs, unsure what they’re missing and why Klaw has waited so long if he’s got something up his sleeve.

Instead he sighs and moves out of the room, going to Okoye specifically. “Have at him I guess. But I think he’s got something on him that Everett obviously didn’t find,” he says.

“I searched him thoroughly,” Everett says in his own defense, obviously taking offense to Tony’s comment. Okoye nods, suspicion high on her features and she nods to Ayo. They step forward and when W’Kabi goes to step forward too Okoye immediately signals to him to stand back. Tony quickly steps away from her, sensing that someone is about to get their ass kicked and he’s not completely certain that its Klaw.

“You can’t take this from me,” he snaps, stepping forward, which proves to be a mistake because Okoye levels her spear at him. Tony’s curious about the weapon- its obviously not a normal spear, but he’s more than content to be far from the other end of that thing.

“I will do what I need to and I don’t need you to do it. Stand down or deal with the consequences of not doing what I’ve told you to,” she tells him in a harsh tone. Inexplicably W’Kabi turns to glare at Tony like he’s the one who caused this and Tony makes a face, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t control your General, buddy,” Tony tells him, earning a sneer from W’Kabi. This does little more than make Tony roll his eyes.

“Please let me do this,” W’Kabi says to Okoye, apparently changing tactics but she shakes her head sharply.

“Your emotions are a liability. Maybe T’Challa will let you have his way with him in Wakanda,” she tells him, sounding doubtful of this. Tony doubts it too because T’Chaka probably has plans for Klaw and he doubts they include W’Kabi. For a moment Tony wonders if W’Kabi is going to actually test Okoye but he doesn’t- he stands down, giving Tony another vicious look as if he’s the source of the problem here and Okoye stands down too, turning back to her original task.

She and Ayo move to go collect Klaw and Tony steps closer to T’Challa, who draws him in almost unconsciously. Tony allows T’Challa to pull him in, settling his head on T’Challa’s shoulder. “You’ve done well,” T’Challa says softly, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

Tony smiles, “thank you,” he murmurs in Wakandan. He’s been practicing and Nakia is more of a help with the language than T’Challa if he’s honest but he’s made good progress learning the language anyways.

“Don’t butcher our language,” W’Kabi snaps at him and T’Challa turns, snarling some kind of response in Wakandan but all Tony catches is a couple swear words and ‘ignorance’.

“I have had enough of you,” T’Challa snaps at him, in English likely for Tony’s benefit. “If you have nothing useful to add keep your mouth shut.”

T’Challa’s words earn Tony another dirty look and, probably because Tony is a real asshole, he grins widely, giving W’Kabi a self satisfied look. It makes W’Kabi’s glare that much more poisonous but they don’t much get a chance to explore that further because that’s when the interrogation room blows up. T’Challa all but throws Tony behind him, which disorients him for a moment before he realizes that no, the room didn’t blow up. But there was a large blast followed by a few smaller ones and Tony sighs. Guess this is where things get complicated.

T’Challa and W’Kabi have already moves forward and Tony reaches for what looks like a watch on his wrist and pulls it forward, allowing the metal to cover his hand. Its not something he thought he’d actually need but he’s happy he had Rhodey bring it now. Another blast goes off and Tony keeps low, carefully picking his way past the now half wall that separated him from Klaw and the Dora Milaje. He can hear the fighting in the room but mostly focuses on ignoring it for now save for snickering at Everett’s loud swearing. He can’t hear Rhodey but he’s not sure if he had left the room before the blast or if he had still been in the back of the room. If he had still been behind Klaw then he’s probably fine, but if he hadn’t been, well. Tony supposes he’ll find out in a moment.

He carefully sidesteps around W’Kabi, who surprisingly lets him do this and T’Challa catches sight of him, trying to shoo him away. Tony gives him a look, shocked that his husband thought he’d ever listen to the silent order. As if. He sticks his head in the doorway a little, earning a long string of warnings in Wakandan from T’Challa, but he ignores it in favor of Klaw’s fucking gun arm. What the fuck? Everett should have stolen the guy’s damn arm. Shit, he should have got Rocket- he would have stolen his arm but no, he only had Quill get them into the damn building. He sighs and considers the situation.

Rhodey is fine at the far end of the room looking a little stunned but he’s reaching for his gun so he’s obviously recovering. Okoye and Ayo are trying to keep out of Klaw’s arm gun’s range while simultaneously trying to corner him to capture him again and Everett has also drawn his weapon but he and Rhodey have both seemed to realize that trying to fire at anyone in such a confined space is a stupid idea. The chance of hitting the wrong person is more than high. Instead they both seem to be trying to find a different solution to their problem and Tony takes it upon himself to be the solution. He stands and T’Challa glares at him, “you get away from that doorway right-” his words are cut off when Tony is shoved forward, hard and he nearly loses his balance as he trips directly towards Klaw. He catches himself just in time for Klaw to point his arm gun thing at him and he quickly covers the muzzle with his hand.

Klaw, perhaps stupidly, laughs before the gun fires and Tony winces a little as he feels the burn of the metal. That’s not supposed to happen- Tony has tested the glove and it didn’t do that with American guns, but the weapon is obviously Wakandan. It doesn’t surprise him that its superior to anything he’s tested the glove out on but it still held up more than enough to avoid him getting shot in the fucking face so he’s not complaining either. He looks down at the arm at the same time a very surprised Klaw does and Tony sees the design. He knows how its put together, how it works. He’s always been good with technology and foreign technology isn’t an exception. But this arm in particular obviously has a Western flair because Tony has seen and made weapons like it.

Its bad news for Klaw because Tony pulls his gloved hand back, twisting the muzzle of the gun as he does and with his other hand he reaches in and snatches the first removable and vital part of the arm he sees before flitting back, certain that if that gun isn’t out of commission it will be if fired again. Klaw snarls, clearly noting the damage Tony has done to the weapon and there’s more bad new for him as the Dora Milaje close in. Rhodey though, for some stupid reason tries to plow his way through Klaw, not paying enough attention to where he’s going because Klaw quickly grabs his wrist, gun dangling from his hand loosely, and pulls the weapon from it with a level of ease that shouldn’t have been possible. Rhodey is a damn trained professional so what?

Rhodey doesn’t even fucking notice, he just keeps moving forward and Tony frowns, following his eye line to W’Kabi. His eyebrows draw together as T’Challa spins the man around and fucking decks him. Tony winces as Everett yells and by the time he’s looked back Klaw has fired the gun he got from Rhodey, Okoye is looking wide eyed at Everett as he jumps in front of her, and Ayo has ignored them both to sidestep around Klaw. She lifts her spear and swings it, smacking Klaw pretty good in the head. He and Everett land on the ground at the same time.

“What the fuck?” Tony says as the room goes near silent.

Okoye leans down over a now bleeding Everett while Ayo stands guard over Klaw. “He just jumped in front of me,” she says, carefully laying her hand on Everett’s shoulder. His breathing is shallow and Tony notes in a sort of numb, shocked way that the bullet caught him between the shoulder blades. That’s just unfortunate.

T’Challa gives W’Kabi another disgusted look before he quickly makes his way over to Everett, swearing softly in his native language when he looks at his wound. He spares Tony a quick glance too before turning back to Everett. “We can’t just leave him to die,” Okoye says softly. He must agree because he slips her one of those beads off his bracelet before turning to Tony. Rhodey beats him to it though, glaring viciously at T’Challa over his shoulder as he does, but he quickly ignores him in favor of hugging Tony.

“Um,” Tony says. “Thanks, I guess.”

Rhodey pulls away for a moment and frowns, “Tony, you almost just died,” he says.

“Yeah but I didn’t,” he points out. “Everett got shot. Didn’t see that coming. Also what the hell, Rhodey? How the hell did he get your gun so easily?” Rhodey frowns again but T’Challa must put something together that Rhodey doesn’t because he explains things a little.

“Tony, W’Kabi all but threw you at Klaw. He tried to kill you. The fact that you have… whatever that glove is and that it worked is the only reason you’re alive. Rhodey was clearly upset-” he starts but Rhodey cuts him off.

“I can speak for myself, thanks,” Rhodey snaps at him, making Tony’s eyebrows go up in surprise. “No one throws my best friend at a terrorist and gets away with it,” he says darkly.

Oh, well that explains things. Granted Rhodey probably should have kept a better grip on his gun if he had murder on his mind but ok. “Wow,” Tony says, “what a total dickhead.”

*

T’Challa is annoyed, very annoyed and he has no damn right to be but seeing Rhodey with Tony is making him go into a blind rage. Objectively he knows that he’s being irrational- the casual touching and easy conversation is because they’ve known each other for a very long time. He probably interacts with Nakia similarly but it annoys him nonetheless. Rhodey notices but Tony remains completely oblivious.

“What has got your nose out of joint?” Nakia asks, also picking up on his behavior apparently. She follows his eye line to Tony laughing at something Rhodey said and she rolls her eyes, flicking his nose. He waves her off, glaring at her for her efforts.

“What was that for?” he asks.

Nakia wrinkles her nose at him a little, “don’t be gross. So he has relationships with people that aren’t you, your jealousy is unwarranted and frankly quite stupid,” she says, blunt as ever. Part of the reason he loves her- she’s always been willing to be honest with him no matter the situation.

“I know that,” he mumbles more to himself than her. “But they get along so well.”

“They’ve been best friends for fifteen years, of course they get along well. What did you expect?” Nakia asks, rolling her eyes.

“Probably not a relationship that makes me kind of want to rip Rhodey’s stupid, overly touchy head off,” he says, fists clenching as Rhodey settles an arm around Tony’s shoulder. Tony leans into it too, like he does with T’Challa and he swears he sees red. Nakia flicks his nose again and he shakes his head, glaring at her, “do you mind?” he asks.

“Not really,” she says. “Now stop with this ridiculous jealousy so we can get Everett to Shuri. And deal with Klaw and W’Kabi.” She shakes her head, particularly disgusted with the man given her stance on Wakanda’s place in the world and what she thinks the country should be doing. As far as opposites go she and W’Kabi are probably as far on each pole as two people could get. It probably helps that she and Tony get along quite well, something T’Challa is pleased with given that he’s going to put a recommendation in for her to be on the Council whenever he takes over as king. Nakia is stubborn and strong- she is unafraid to voice her opinions or fight for them and he thinks she will be an excellent choice for a Council member. He thinks the river tribe will agree as well- they are all quite proud of her and its easy to see why. If Tony had… well, acted like he currently is his plans for Nakia, should she accept them, would not go smoothly.

He sighs, “fine, please get Tony for me. I don’t trust myself not to do something stupid that I will regret later,” he tells her.

Nakia smiles, “and you finally learn a little self control. Thank Bast- imagine if you acted the way you did when you were a teen,” she says, shaking her head.

T’Challa frowns, “I feel that at my age anyone who acts the way they did as a teen is not likely to learn much in life. But thank you,” he says, inclining his head a little. He turns to walk away but Tony calls out to him so he turns back around.

“We’re leaving now, right?” he asks, quickly jogging up to him. T’Challa resists the urge to wipe Rhodey’s scent off him because he knows that his line of thinking is flat out absurd but his nose itches nonetheless.

“Yes,” he says simply, going for simple, not stupid answers that betray his irrational feelings. Rhodey walks up behind Tony, who mostly ignores him for the moment, but Rhodey then makes that impossible because he decides it’s a good idea to literally rub his hands all over Tony, who looks both confused and annoyed about this. He waves Rhodey off when he rubs his hands through his hair and frowns at him.

“Do you mind?” he asks.

Rhodey ignores him to glare at T’Challa, “get over yourself,” he snaps, walking away with that.

Tony’s eyebrows shoot up, “he really doesn’t like you, kitten,” he says and T’Challa makes a face.

“Do not ever call me ‘kitten’ again,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes, “then don’t complain about Rhodey’s nicknames,” he tells him. “Or I’ll make up something worse.”

*

When they get Everett to Shuri she grins, “a broken white boy! What do I get to fix?” she asks excitedly, rubbing her hands together with glee. Tony raises an eyebrow but everyone else seems confident that she’ll be able to fix Everett somehow. Tony isn’t sure how but he’s remained completely stable through the entire trip back to Wakanda with no issues so clearly they all have something going on here.

“Thank you for that,” Okoye says softly to him and he frowns.

“For what?” he asks.

She sighs, “as much as I dislike Shuri’s work getting credited to someone else I appreciate the implications of your explanation,” she says and it clicks for him.

“Its not like I’d ever do something like that normally, but someone had to explain your weapons and short of telling everyone the truth I figured well, I’ve made impossible things with nothing but scraps and hopes before. Doesn’t seem extremely unrealistic to the people who know me that I’d do it again. No one who even considered those weapons for more than the few battle shocked moments they got could ever conclude that I made them but,” he shrugs, “they’ll think what’s easiest for them to believe.” Rhodey had inquired about the designs specifically, noting that they aren’t at all his usual style- that’s because he didn’t make them- but he faked out by explaining that he made the weapons to fit Wakanda’s aesthetic.

Surprisingly he bought that lie and everyone else, which had mostly been Quill and Natasha with Nakia on guard duty, didn’t need more than his simple one liner about making new toys. Neither of them even saw the weapons in use so it’s not hard to write off. Rhodey would have been the challenge but he accepted the lie easily so luck happened to be on their side.

“What W’Kabi did was unforgivable,” Okoye adds softly. “I hope…” she sighs, “I hope you don’t believe all of Wakanda is not like that. Usually we are a rational people.” Her opinion on the latest events is abundantly clear.

Tony shrugs, “seems kind of hard to assume this entire country is shit when A- its better than mine even if its not always better to me specifically. And B- I’ve seen plenty of evidence that you’re not all a bunch of assholes. I never would have assumed this entire country is like W’Kabi. Statistically even the entire border tribe can’t be like W’Kabi,” he points out. Though he worries about those that are- just because not all of them are shitty people with a nasty case of xenophobia doesn’t mean the ones with extremist opinions aren’t still dangerous.

Okoye nods. “I did not agree with the way you were brought into this country- still don’t. But I think you are a find addition regardless,” she says. High praise from her, or that’s the impression Tony gets.

He smiles, “thank you,” he says in Wakandan and Okoye smiles brightly, saying the Wakandan equivalent to ‘you’re welcome’ back to him. He grins, pleased that he’s understood the phrase. Finally, he thinks, he’s actually picking the damn language up.