Inimitable

T’Challa looks around the area and Tony can’t fault him for the disgust there. “People are allowed to live like this?” he asks Tony. In Wakanda that would never happen- the sharp inequality that exists in America. But Wakanda’s system is built on the premise that all work contributes to the system and that if you remove something from that system it begins to fail. America’s system has a harsh hierarchy that deems most jobs expendable, low skilled, and therefore useless or lacking a meaningful contribution no matter how untrue. As a result yes, anyone who works the more expendable jobs, or are more expendable people, end up in areas like the one they’re in.

“Keeping people living like this is borderline encouraged in this country. Here being a failure is treated like a personal failing- when people talk inequality its often brushed off and you’re told to work harder. What they don’t know is that people already bust their asses. I work ten times as hard as Justin Hammer and get half the credit despite being about a million times more competent. America thinks it rewards the talented, but it rewards the rich and the privileged. Thankfully I do happen to mostly fall into that category. But people here don’t in any capacity.” He could guarantee that most of the people here work far harder than most of the people Tony knows but they don’t get any of the credit for it. From his research of the area to say people worked to survive is an understatement- its more like they worked to be in debt because they simply can’t afford anything.

“America, land of the free,” T’Challa says in a harsh, mocking tone. “I can’t believe your people would do this to themselves. How could they allow this?”

Tony sighs, “people who are working to survive don’t have time to complain about never getting ahead- they’re consistently falling behind. That’s how powerful people in this country like it. I’m sure you realize now why Wakanda’s system is so… foreign to me.”

T’Challa gives him a cool, appraising look. “Were you like that?” he asks. ‘Were’- past tense. T’Challa has too much faith in him.

He’d like to say no but its not true, not really. “For too long, yeah I was. Mostly out of ignorance but that doesn’t excuse not looking beyond my rose tinted glasses to see what an absolute fuckhead I was. I’ve spent a long time trying to do better, but that’s not the kind of thing you can really erase from your life,” he says honestly.

“You admit that freely,” T’Challa says and Tony shrugs.

“Why wouldn’t I? I don’t like when people try and brush treating me like shit because I’m an omega under the rug, doesn’t make sense to do that with my own shitty behavior,” he reasons. He hadn’t always done that but Rhodey made some persuasive arguments and Tony had rightly felt like a total dickhead. So he tries not to do that now.

T’Challa reaches out and laces his fingers through Tony’s, “I think you give yourself less credit than you deserve. You grew up in a culture that encouraged you to be a bad person and you’re not. That’s no small feat,” T’Challa says.

“When you grow up in a culture that encourages discrimination growing up to continue promoting that culture means you lack empathy, critical thinking skills, and basic common sense. Growing up to realize your culture is wrong doesn’t make you a good person- being a good person means doing something about it.” Which he hasn’t mostly. Most of the designs he has worked on were things that interested him intellectually- people had been an afterthought. That’s now always how it went, eventually he took an interest in people too but that took time.

“You are doing something about it Tony, you’ve brought me here. You certainly have no patience for people discriminating against you or anyone else, and you’ve created several designs to help the environment here. Is that not enough?” he asks.

No, its not even close to enough but making up for what he’s done isn’t something that’s possible. He doubts T’Challa would understand.

*

Tony and Nakia watch T’Challa talk to the locals, mostly trying to gather information about his cousin. Its sad to watch but necessary, Tony thinks, to his ability to move on from this. He doubts T’Challa’s anger at his father will go away any time soon though. “I still… I can’t believe T’Chaka would do something like that,” Nakia whispers softly.

He had come clean to the country after T’Challa found out because T’Challa hadn’t been able to sleep and absolutely refused to keep his father’s secret for him. That was not, T’Challa said, the kind of king he expected his father to be and he certainly hadn’t been alright with allowing such a tragic and horrific event just fall away to the dust of history. He had been offended at the lack of care T’Chaka showed his brother and more at the lack of care Erik got.

“I’m not so surprised, but that’s probably because I expect my leaders to be terrible people. In America this kind of thing is par for the course,” he says.

Nakia shakes her head, “in Wakanda that’s not what we do, its not our way. What’s worse is that thirty years ago we all would have understood however awful that was. The country was far more opposed to the outside world then- they would have seen T’Chaka’s actions as a necessary evil and he chose to hide it anyways. I don’t understand that,” she says.

Tony does. “He felt guilty Nakia, he didn’t want to do it. It makes a kind of twisted sense in context.” Why tell the country about something he found just as despicable and horrible as T’Challa and Nakia found it now? Granted that had been guilt over his brother but not N’Jobu’s son. Erik didn’t get the privilege of the king’s thoughts and that’s what Tony finds the most cruel. He understands T’Chaka and his actions, and especially N’Jobu and his, but to leave a child to die simply because Erik had been perceived as part of a mistake T’Chaka and N’Jobu made- that’s horrible. Erik was literally left to die over choices he had no say in, over nothing that he had ever done. From what he’s gathered Erik grew up angry and resentful and Tony can’t say he blames him for that. Growing up a prince in the land of the paupers just because his father thought to help and his uncle wanted to continue hiding while his mother died in prison. What a shit life to be handed.

“His actions make no sense to me,” Nakia says.

“That’s because you’d never do anything like that,” Tony points out.

“And you would?” Nakia counters, raising an eyebrow. She clearly doesn’t think he would.

“We all make questionable decisions based on whether or not we think we’re right. I have no doubt I’d make horrible mistakes in the name of doing what’s right.” Its certainly not something he’s proud to admit, but he knows himself well and if he got handed a bad solution with a good pitch he knows he’d be stupid enough to fall for it. Rhodey once told him that for all his suspicion of people and the world he actually had a lot of faith in them and its not wrong. Its something Rhodey shares- its why he’s in the military despite the evidence that the military isn’t exactly a great institution. Its why Tony held so much faith in Howard for so long before he eventually realized that Howard is a bad man and he rather likes being that way.

Nakia considers him for a long moment. “I think you lack faith in yourself and its not entirely deserved. You’re a good man, Tony. Without you none of this would have been brought to light- believe it or not but Wakanda is thankful for that. You’ve done a lot to change the opinions of people about foreigners in the country with how beneficial you’ve been,” she says.

Tony rolls his eyes, “foreigners shouldn’t need to be useful,” he says. “But I’m happy to learn that people have figured out that they’re assholes. Besides that you’re wrong- secrets never stay secret. T’Chaka’s actions would have come to light with or without me.” He suspects T’Challa would have figured it out eventually. It might have taken longer, but he’s a smart, capable man. He’d put the pieces together. Hell, if Shuri had known what to look for it would have taken her ten minutes to figure out everything he did. It took him a half hour to figure it out but Shuri’s systems are still a little strange to him so the learning curve slowed him down. The good news was that he finally figured out how to transfer JARVIS and the AI has been irritating the hell out of Shuri since he set JARVIS up in their now shared lab space.

“I think T’Chaka is going to abdicate the throne to T’Challa,” Nakia says. “People now hold more trust in him and T’Chaka isn’t stupid. T’Challa is the future of Wakanda. But you might want to prep him for that because as smart as he is sometimes the smartest political choices go over his head if he’s on the receiving end of them,” she says.

Tony laughs, “yeah- case and point, our marriage. Thankfully that worked out but yeah, I’ll talk to him about it.”

In the meantime Tony and Nakia can both see how invested T’Challa now is in international environmentalism. Its for the best Tony thinks, whatever problems will arise from it. Tony is sure T’Challa will manage just fine at figuring things out.

He and Nakia sit in silence for some time before she speaks again, “you know I’ve never seen him so enamored with someone before,” she tells him.

“I don’t know, you’re a pretty good catch. To be honest I’m kind of a downgrade,” he says and Nakia laughs.

“Maybe a little,” she jokes and he laughs too. “But he does love you and as his best friend it is my duty to tell you that if you break his heart I know hundreds of ways to kill a man. I won’t make your death pleasant,” she tells him.

Tony lets out a loud snort, “wow, you and Rhodey both. He made his obligatory threat on T’Challa’s life last night and almost ended up murdered by Okoye. But I’ll tell you what T’Challa told Rhodey. There really isn’t much to worry about. Even if we did grow apart, and I doubt that’ll happen, then we’d be mature enough to not be dicks about it.”

Nakia winces, “oh, I would not want to be murdered by Okoye. She’s quite good,” she says.

Yeah, Tony has no doubt about that. “You should meet Rhodey, you’d get along,” Tony says. “You know, best friends of the grooms bonding and all that. In America usually that happens at the wedding but you know, I got married in a country that has exactly one foreign resident.” Rhodey would probably like Nakia too; this would be a good set up if Tony can pull it off. He’ll get T’Challa involved later.

*

T’Challa paces the room and Tony watches, petting the cat as he works things out in his head. “I should organize some kind of meeting with the UN- that would be useful in obtaining which countries have the worst environments so I can organize helping the worst areas first,” T’Challa says and Tony sends Everett an email to figure it out. Poor guy, he thought he was going to escape Tony and accidentally fell right back into his trap. He sends Coulson an email to be sure Everett manages his goal.

“From there working outwards makes the most sense. Education will be important too- there is no point in cleaning the environment with technologies no one knows how to maintain or fix. Shuri can handle that,” he says and Tony sends another email to Shuri explaining T’Challa’s intentions.

“You might want to give people tools too- its not like most areas have them,” Tony points out as he makes a note of it in his email to Shuri.

“Yes, that’s a good point. We also need to maintain some kind of balance between helpful, but not weak or naïve,” he says and Tony grins.

“Just bring Okoye with you everywhere. Only someone with a death wish would ever cross her,” he says.

T’Challa nods, “alright. That might make some sense, having a guard around. It would send the message that we have a military without threatening to use it plus if anything happens Okoye is the best there is,” he says, nodding mostly to himself. He rattles off a few other things he thinks will be necessary or problems he anticipates like translators, trade agreements, and Tony points out cultural differences will absolutely influence how they’re perceived. When he finally runs out of his list though he sighs, “ugh- well I guess I have to… figure out how to put all this in motion,” he says, looking exhausted already.

Tony smiles, “you have a meeting with the UN on Tuesday at ten a.m, Nakia is already in contact with war dogs to try and make a preliminary categorization of which areas need the most help in which countries, Shuri is running the numbers Nakia is sending her. I’ve put out feelers for translators and people willing to give Wakandan educators a crash course in cultural cues, Okoye is obviously willing to guard you at all times, and we have a dinner reservation at eight,” he says.

For a moment T’Challa just stares at him. “I have no idea what I’d do without you,” he says honestly and Tony snorts.

“Rely on Nakia to do everything I just did,” he says and T’Challa shakes his head, smiling.

“Probably,” he admits.

“Oh, and your mom is going to give you a crash course lesson on how to handle international diplomacy because apparently she has a wealth of knowledge on that,” Tony adds. How that’s possible he doesn’t know but he figures if the queen has useful knowledge it makes sense to pass it along. Tony has his own set of knowledge to pass along too and he knows he’s probably going to end up the cultural translator for America.

T’Challa frowns, obviously thinking something similar to what Tony had been thinking but he doesn’t say anything. “Alright then,” he says, shrugging.

“Also your father is going to abdicate the throne to you,” Tony says and T’Challa’s eyes bug out of his head.

“He’s going to what?” he asks. “No! I am not ready for that!” he says in a panicky tone but Tony sighs.

“T’Challa, you’re more ready for it than your father is and he’s been king for like… I don’t know how long because looking that up didn’t occur to me. Point is the first thing you did when you found out about your uncle was right that wrong and now you’re basically starting an international environmental cleanup on your own. That isn’t exactly a small undertaking and you’re not shying away from the responsibility of it at all. You’ll be a great king, T’Challa,” Tony tells him honestly.

T’Challa walks over to him and kisses his forehead. “Only because I have such supportive people around me. You, Nakia, Shuri, Okoye- without all of you I would not be able to do all this,” he says softly.

Tony smiles, “yes you would. We just make it a little easier for you.”

*

“I never want to see anything like that again,” Tony says, looking particularly upset. T’Challa would smile but his face hurts. M’Baku knows how to throw a punch even if he hadn’t won the fight. Interestingly he had chosen to continue to object to vibranium use rather than the country opening its borders like the other now outlying faction of Wakanda is. They have lost a good part of the border tribe, but almost as many have stuck around and members of the merchant tribe and the river tribe have stepped in to help the remaining members of the border tribe keep things running the way they should be. He’s been grateful for the support the rest of the country has given him, but Tony says that’s because of the speech he gave about Erik. T’Challa thinks he’s just given the fallen prince what he earned and it still isn’t enough. Erik never should have been subjected to the life he had- no one should be subjected to that.

Shuri laughs, “did you see their faces when they all thought I was going to challenge my brother? Classic,” she says gleefully.

“Did you miss the entire part of that where T’Challa nearly went over a cliff?” Tony asks, eyes wide.

“I was fine,” T’Challa tells him even though he had had to cling particularly tight to M’Baku to not go over the edge. It worked out for him anyways, M’Baku eventually stood down.

“That makes one of us,” Tony mumbles, hand pressed to his chest. “I think I had a minor heart attack.”

“I should make a meme out of the look on your face,” Shuri tells him. “You looked so distraught.”

He doesn’t look less distraught now, or at least T’Challa imagines he doesn’t given how worried he still obviously is. “Don’t be rude, Shuri,” T’Challa tells her.

“Its not rude to make a meme,” Shuri says. “America has a lot of them but they’re very disturbing. Its like they think making jokes about their terrible conditions will make it better.”

“Black humor,” Tony provides. “It does actually help. If you make a joke about T’Challa nearly dying I’m sorry Shuri but I’ll have to throw you off that cliff,” Tony tells her when he sees the light bulb go off in her head. T’Challa shakes his head at the two of them. He will never understand their bond but he’s happy they have one nonetheless.

Deleted Scenes:

T’Challa frowns when he reads the American headline. “The distraction Rhodey caused when we went to collect Klaw was… setting off the zombie alert in Texas? Why does America have a zombie alert?” T’Challa asks.

Tony is too busy pissing himself laughing to know because that’s too fucking funny. “Once,” Tony wheezes out, “I needed Rhodey to distract people so I could hack SHIELD for all they’re worth so he made… made up this fucking thing,” he squeezes out. “And people still say they’ve seen the fucking thing in Arkansas.” T’Challa looks confused so Tony pulls up the stories from nearly twelve years ago now, perching himself in T’Challa’s lap as he reads the articles. Tony is too busy laughing to notice T’Challa’s reactions.

“Americans seriously believed Arkansas was being tormented by some kind of made up cryptid they thought the American government was behind?” T’Challa asks, looking downright baffled. Tony stops his laughing because after hearing T’Challa pronounce ‘Arkansas’ he’s baffled too.

“Say the name of that state again,” Tony says and T’Challa frowns.

“Arkansas,” he says, pronouncing it ‘our-Kansas’.

“Honey… its pronounced ‘ar-can-saw’ not ‘our-Kansas’,” he says.

T’Challa gives him an unimpressed look, tossing the tablet he had been holding onto the table. “Your country is stupid, the words do not make sense, and I can’t believe your population is so naïve they believed a stupid story made up by a colonel with a wild imagination,” he says.

Tony bursts out laughing again. “Its pronounced ‘kernel’, not whatever the hell you just said,” he tells T’Challa, who sticks his nose in the air.

“Off my lap.”

*

“Tony,” Shuri says, walking up to him looking determined. “I need to you do some brotherly duties and give me some sex advice,” she says and Tony makes a face.

“Since when is that a brotherly duty?” he asks, wrinkling his nose hard.

Shuri sighs, “you’re right, I went to you specifically because you are not T’Challa, I was just trying to trap you in the conversation with social convention and is came out… not good. So ignore that I need advice,” she says.

“From me?” Tony asks. He can feel the disgust lingering on his face.

“Well who else am I supposed to go to?” she asks.

“I don’t know, a therapist?” Tony asks more than states.

Shuri rolls her eyes, “who goes to a therapist for sex advice?” she asks and Tony doesn’t tell her that there’s an entire industry in America centered around sex therapy alone. That doesn’t seem like a good thing to mention here.

“Me after this conversation probably. Except instead of sex advice it’ll be how to forget that my surrogate sister asked me for sex advice. Talk to your mother,” Tony tells her.

Shuri frowns, “would you ask your mother for sex advice?” she asks.

Tony rolls his eyes, “these days the only thing I’d ask my mother for is a kind request to get the fuck away from me,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah you have mommy issues. And daddy issues. And only child issues. You’re messed up, can we get back to the sex advice?” she asks.

“No, I am not giving you advice. Do what American kids do and go play around on the internet until you figure out you have some weird ass kink you didn’t expect and then develop a deep seated fear of your own sexuality that results in you living in a hypersexual and also prudish culture at the same time. And leave me out of it,” Tony tells her.

Shuri shakes her head, “you’re right. America has problems and I pity T’Challa for having to work through all your issues. I’ll ask Okoye,” she says and Tony lets out a sigh of relief.

“Finally,” he mumbles.

*

T’Challa and Okoye sit glued to the television screen and Tony sighs, exchanging a pained look with Nakia. When Tony had introduced American media to Wakanda their limited exposure had obviously gone up considerably, but the country had rightfully dismissed most of reality television as trash, and they had no interest in soap operas. Imagine everyone’s surprise when the damn king and the general, the two most no-nonsense and two of the most intelligent people in the country ended up borderline addicted to both of those trash forms of media.

“Tony stop looking at Nakia like that, it’s a good show,” T’Challa says. “Kind of reminds me of how we met,” he adds and Tony lets out a long, drawn out sigh.

“You’re right. You’re fucking right, we could have been on this goddamn reality TV show and I want to die. Nakia, you know that bar with those cocktails? Lets go get wasted so we can forget that apparently my life is a reality television show about being married at first sight,” he says.

Nakia gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm, “I had that thought as soon as T’Challa introduced me to the concept of the show but I didn’t want to say anything,” she says.

“I’m going to need shots of some really strong alcohol to forget this,” Tony mumbles.

The show flips to a new couple and Okoye throws popcorn at the screen, “that man is a piece of shit, she deserved better,” she says and Tony is sure that’s right.

“I hope she ends up getting a divorce,” T’Challa adds, earning an approving nod from Okoye. Culture shock had been a thing when they were introduced to reality TV but mostly in regards to relationships. T’Challa had quickly learned why Tony had been so suspicious in the beginning of their relationship and he and Okoye spend most of their time offended at the assumptions people make about omegas, betas, and on one occasion alphas. T’Challa and Okoye had both been rather offended to learn that in America they were easily written off as vicious sex beasts due to their hormonal nature and both found the notion of lacking control because of their biology offensive at best. It had been amusing to watch until they decided not to give up reality TV after that.

“Telling them about these shows was a bad idea,” Nakia mumbles. “You should have stuck to Die Hard.” T’Challa hates the movie and Tony is well and truly offended by that. Die Hard is a classic.

“Next time I think exposing them to something American is a good idea remind me of this,” he tells her. She nods gravely in agreement.

“Next time expose them to sushi,” she advises.