When Tony wakes up he’s freezing and his body feels heavy. It takes a long while, the smell of snow, and the feeling of blood dripping down his forehead for him to realize where ever he was he needed to get out of there immediately, and that for some reason he had a massive metal cocoon over his body that was doing a shit job at keeping the cold out. Whatever the point of the suit was it obviously wasn’t to keep him warm.
*
T’Challa disliked politics and diplomacy- it was often slow and cumbersome but it was a necessary thing and since Steve’s letter didn’t work out he thought perhaps it was a useful time to test his skills in smoothing over disagreements. This particular disagreement would not result in his country either working something out or having an adverse reaction so he was pleased to help Steve in his attempts to reach out to Tony. What he finds instead is a confused man who has no idea who he is. “We did not meet formally,” he says, “but I would have thought you would remember the king of Wakanda,” he says, frowning and wondering if perhaps Clint’s assessment of Stark’s arrogance was right.
Tony frowns though, “King of Wakanda? I… don’t you guys mostly keep to yourselves? And why would you personally care about me? No offense, its just that I don’t think I’d have a use to you,” he says.
This is what tips T’Challa off that something is wrong, “we met after my father was killed at the signing of the Accords. It was brief, and so was our fight together, but we were technically fighting on the same side,” he says. “Do you… not remember?” he asks when Tony looks confused.
He shakes his head, “near as I can tell my memory cuts out about a decade ago. I thought aliens just attacked us, but Rhodey has informed me that a bunch of stuff has happened since then. Apparently Steve and I still don’t get along though, got some letter from him like a month ago that was probably one of the shittiest apologies I’ve ever seen and trust me, I’m no good at apologies. So uh, yeah I guess some things never change,” he says, shrugging. “To be honest I thought he was apologizing for aliens at first and I was really confused.”
‘You have an amnesia,” T’Challa says. “From the fight.”
Tony shrugs, “guess so, Rhodey couldn’t tell me what happened because he wasn’t with-” his voice cuts out unexpectedly and he blinks rapidly, shaking his head. “Sorry its just that Rhodey got hurt and,” he shakes his head again, looking at the ground.
“At the airport yes, I remember,” T’Challa tells him gently. “I was there for that.”
This catches Tony’s attention, “what it my fault? His fall- he keeps skirting the subject,” he says.
Was it his- why would Tony believe that was his fault? “To be honest I am not sure. At the time I was recovering from being electrocuted several times in quick succession but from what I saw, and that is not much I should warn you, it appeared that Vision was making a move to hit Sam’s wings but he missed, grazing Rhodey instead. Then… well you know what happened after that.” He had no idea who gave what orders or what else was going on, but that was what he saw. Tony looks guilty despite T’Challa’s words not implicating him and his eyebrows draw together a little in confusion.
After a beat of silence Tony looks up from the ground, “sorry, by the way. About your father. I know a thing or two about loss, so uh; I don’t know where I was going with that to be honest. I’m no good at this kind of thing but still, I’m sorry that you had to go through that,” he says. His tone is soft and genuine and if T’Challa were to pick a moment when he began to wonder if Tony Stark was everything everyone said he was that was the moment.
*
Tony had no idea what he was supposed to do with the King of Wakanda in his home but he made the man coffee and handed him Steve’s letter and that stupid cell phone. What the fuck was he supposed to do with an outdated flip phone? Regardless he didn’t find the apology convincing and Rhodey had found it even less convincing. So much less convincing that whenever Tony brought up the Accords he launched into a rant about the letter instead of filling Tony in on the details that created the need for the letter. So far all he got was that it was a political thing and something like one hundred and seventeen countries were on board with the political thing. Given the sheer amount of people on board Tony was impressed, but unsure why he’d show support. Its not like he was well known for caring about government systems so why the change of heart? Rhodey liked to avoid that too.
T’Challa tosses the letter on Tony’s coffee table and rolls his eyes, “had I known Steve was so awful at issuing an apology I would have wrote the letter myself.”
Yeah, he’s heard it all from Rhodey but… “do you know what he meant, about my parents?” he asks and T’Challa looks suddenly uncomfortable. He can see for a few moments T’Challa considering not telling him whatever information he knew but he eventually lets out a deep breath.
“You may want to sit down,” he says and Tony clenches his jaw, tilting his head up in defiance immediately.
“I really hate when people say that,” he says in a warning tone, something T’Challa clearly recognizes right away.
He sighs and gives himself a few beats more of discomfort before he speaks. “Your parents did not die in a car crash. They were murdered by the Winter Soldier,” he says bluntly.
Tony feels like he’s been sucker punched and he doubles over for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain. “And what… what did Steve mean by keeping it from me?” he asks through the tight feeling in his throat.
“I am not clear on the details,” T’Challa murmurs, “but from what I gathered he knew for some time and didn’t tell you. I think you were helping him look for Bucky Barnes and perhaps funding his search. I am not entirely certain that is how things went, but from what I have gathered that is what I have put together.”
He reaches out to steady himself on the edge of his couch and lets the information sink in. “And he told me I was a shitty hero…” he murmurs, unsure what to do here.
*
“Did I not tell you that?” Rhodey asks, looking upset on Tony’s behalf. T’Challa had left him some time ago saying he’d come back later, fleeing the scene likely because Tony had gone mute.
He shakes his head, “no- whenever I mention the letter your rant about how crappy that apology was,” he says.
Rhodey winces, “sorry. I… thought I told you about that. You shouldn’t have had to hear that from someone who is basically a stranger,” he says softly.
Basically wasn’t the right word- T’Challa was a stranger. A nice stranger who was clearly invested in smoothing over whatever argument he and Steve were in now, but a stranger still. “It’s… I know you didn’t mean any kind of harm by it,” Tony says softly. Rhodey wheels over and presses his hand to Tony’s shoulder.
“I’m here for you, you know. It’s a shitty consolation, but its true,” Rhodey tells him.
It isn’t a subpar form of solace, he loved Rhodey more than almost anyone else in his life so he leans over and hugs him. “Its not a shitty consolation,” he murmurs.
*
“You could have warned me about his head injury,” T’Challa tells Steve. “I was caught off guard and given his lack of memory it explains his lack of a reaction.”
Steve just looks confused though, “head injury?” he asks.
T’Challa frowns at him, “you were the one that almost killed him in that bunker, did you not notice his head injury? He has no memory of the last decade- I had to explain the situation about his parents to him.” That had not been an easy task. T’Challa’s own pain was fresh and new and he had no desire to open an old wound. Certainly not one involving the death of one’s parents. It was not a situation Steve handled even remotely well even if he understood his motivations- he stood to lose something important too- but it was T’Challa’s opinion that his decision was cruel. It did not help that he had been through a loss similar to Tony’s himself not long ago, and it left him with far more responsibility than he wanted.
“I… he… he was fine when we left- I hardly tried to kill him. I just… needed his suit out of commission. For Bucky’s sake,” Steve says softly. He looks haunted and T’Challa supposed he would too if he were remembering the near loss of a loved one. Again.
“How was he supposed to get out of there?” T’Challa asks, remembering belatedly that Tony would have used that suit to fly in, and if he couldn’t use it he could hardly fly out. He knew that because he followed Tony to Siberia.
“Tony is resourceful,” Steve says but T’Challa knew a bad answer covered in confidence when he saw one. Being in politics it was a necessary skill to have.
He sighs, having no time to worry about this at the moment. “He has no memory of his past- at this point my help is useless considering he has no memory of me either,” he says. He no longer had any basis for talking to Tony and what he had had been weak to begin with.
Steve sighs though, running his hand through slightly overgrown hair. “T’Challa he won’t listen to me- we were probably on worse terms ten years ago than we are now,” he says.
T’Challa raises an eyebrow, “I suppose these were the terms that led to you lying to him about his parents?” he asks and Steve winces. So does T’Challa. “I am sorry it is just- losing a parent is hard enough without keeping details of it to yourself. It was a cruel thing you did, and your apology was subpar at best.” This was coming from someone who used to issue apologies that were similar on a regular basis until he learned to do better. His father must have been glad for it, and now he was too. He simply could not imagine what his life would be like if he hadn’t matured and had been handed the throne after his father’s death. That would have led to nothing less than disaster.
“I thought my apology was fine,” Steve says, frowning.
“Your apology, in essence, was that you were sorry he was hurt. Not that you were sorry you hurt him. There is a difference and based on that alone I can see why he would refuse to reply. I don’t think you meant badly, but that was not a very good apology.” He would know after literal years of practice of his father forcing him to write out apologies to everyone he ever wronged in life. Except B’Tumba but the circumstances for that friendship ending had not been T’Challa’s fault. It was useful now when he had to issue public apologies- which he supposed was the point of his father’s exercises.
Steve sighs, “maybe it wasn’t, that’s irrelevant now. We need Tony’s help is we want out of here any time soon,” he says.
T’Challa thought a decent apology might go a long way to achieving that goal but he ends up agreeing to talk to Tony again instead.
*
Tony sits across from T’Challa and sighs, “so Steve and co need some legal help to get out of your country,” he says just to be clear on things. T’Challa nods and Tony frowns, “and how exactly am I to help?” he asks. Rhodey had apparently locked the Avengers out of most of his stuff, including several spaces he had designed specifically for the Avengers. The exception to this lock out was Peter but to be fair he was a kid and someone needed to give him a space to actually learn how to fight. Rhodey was teaching him now and Tony has seen a lot of improvement so far.
For a moment T’Challa considers his words before he shrugs, “I have no idea what Steve has in mind,” he says honestly, shaking his head like he had lost steam suddenly.
Maybe its because he had experience with the symptoms or something but Tony knows exactly how he feels and he reaches out, gently laying his hand on T’Challa’s arm. “Forget Steve and whatever else went on there- you need time to deal with what happened to your father. Go home, I’ll deal with this,” he says softly.
T’Challa shakes his head, visibly forcing himself into moving forward like he had energy. “You are in no state to deal with this, Tony, you can’t even remember the last decade of your life. You barely even know what the Accords are let along everything else that happened. I can handle this,” he says. The last bit sounded more like it was to himself than Tony.
Tony shakes his head, “this isn’t your responsibility to handle. Steve is a big boy, he can handle his own problems and if you think I can’t handle it Rhodey has all the knowledge I do and probably a lot more if I’m honest. They can talk things out. But you need to go home and deal with your grief- if you don’t bad things will happen. Take it from someone with a lifetime of experience,” he tells T’Challa, tightening his hand on T’Challa’s forearm for a brief moment before he pulls back.
For a moment he thinks T’Challa will fight him on it again but he eventually sighs. “Okay. Thank you,” he says softly.
“Don’t thank me for this- I’m just doing what’s right,” he says. “Go home, grieve, do whatever it is a king is supposed to do. But don’t take responsibility for messes that aren’t yours. It’s the last thing anyone needs right now, especially you.”
*
Rhodey was looking forward to his meeting with Steve and Tony was set to go with him because he didn’t really want Rhodey to do something he would regret. Granted Tony was usually the one to do that but after the last two months of Rhodey’s rants Tony had to wonder if his best friend was about to tear Steve Rogers a new asshole. That was probably a yes but Tony figured he could stop him if he got too mean.
When he gets to Wakanda- because T’Challa was polite enough to open up his country to them to begin with- though T’Challa almost immediately pulls him aside. “You should leave this to Rhodey. You already pointed out he knows more than you and besides that my sister has questions for you.” Tony raises an eyebrow but follows T’Challa along through his huge house. Colorful too- and surprisingly modern by American standards. The house was all clean edges and lines but the walls were bright and patterned- something Tony noticed was popular on Wakandan fashion as well. It was a stunning combination Tony never would have considered himself but after seeing what the country had to offer he was unsurprised.
What little information was around about the country was completely untrue to the biggest of extremes. Tony heard they were a third world textile country but he was flown in in a plane that defied all known aviation logic and what he saw was lush and green. It had been obvious to him right away that poverty, whatever that may look like here, was not gripping the entire country. The brief time he spent flying over a city showed massive green spaces and technology that almost had him tossing himself out of the plane in curiosity. Rhodey had held him back obviously, but that was probably because he was preoccupied with the plane. He was a pilot after all.
They eventually round a corner and walk into a lab that made Tony’s little engineering heart sing with happiness and a little jealousy. A teen looks up from her station at the far side of the room and grins, walking around the table and giving an exaggerated bow to T’Challa. “My king,” she says near sarcastically and T’Challa smiles and swats at her.
“Stop that. I brought you a treat,” he says, gesturing to Tony, who immediately looks behind himself.
“Not the sharpest tool in the shed, hmm?” she asks and T’Challa laughs.
“Leave him alone, I hardly told him why I brought him here. Or that I was bringing him here. I suggest you ask his questions before he goes to try and save Steve Rogers from his friend,” he says, beaconing Tony closer. “This is my sister, Shrui,” he tells him, gesturing to his sister.
“Yes, that’s irrelevant. Explain to me why this is not working- the design is better than yours,” she tells him and he frowns. Upon closer inspection though he finds that she’s recreated his mini reactor. Actually that would be a disservice to her work- what she did was create a loosely inspired reactor that apparently had a problem.
“What about it isn’t working?” he asks and Shuri hands over her notes. He raises an eyebrow, surprised with the action but Shuri rolls her eyes.
“What? You think you’ll be able to learn anything useful from the notes? You are at least a decade behind me as far as your ability to invent goes, probably two with the amnesia and I was giving you some serious credit to begin with. You wouldn’t be able to recreate the design anyways, but you might be able to tell me what’s wrong with the core considering it has the same problem your early designs did,” she says, giving the stack of papers in Tony’s hands an annoyed look.
*
T’Challa finds Tony and Shuri’s interactions hilarious for a number of reasons, but most of them had to do with their offense with each other. Shuri started their interactions by telling Tony he couldn’t recreate her design, which was quickly proven wrong, which led Shuri to reinvent the entire thing to prove she was better than Tony, which resulted in the two of them playing inventing cat and mouse. Despite Shuri’s worries she was the cat here- it was clear that she outstripped Tony in raw knowledge and inventive abilities, he just happened to be an incredibly fast learner. If not for that ability Shuri would not have competition at all and even then T’Challa wouldn’t view Tony as any real threat to Shrui’s abilities. He was copying her designs, not improving them. He probably could, but Shuri was still making leaps Tony didn’t appear capable of. Tony seems to take no offense to this, just to the possibility that he couldn’t learn.
And he does find the problem with Shuri’s core and he even gives her the ingredients to synthesize the element he used to solve the poison core problem. Shuri had been suspicious of his motivations at first, but it becomes clear that he simply took a liking to a bright, young mind and shared the information to improve her craft. It was as endearing to T’Challa as it was to Shuri. “That was nice of you,” T’Challa says, not having the right words to express his appreciation at least in English. He knew what he would say in his own language, but English was not as eloquent.
Tony shrugs, “I’m bored and Rhodey has been fuming for days- might as well do something with my time and your sister is the smartest person I’ve ever meet,” he tells him. “Not that you’re much lower than her in the intelligence department. What you’ve done with air travel is fucking incredible.”
Compared to what Tony has done certainly, but compared to the technology that Tony was used to… well Wakanda had technology like that in the fifties. He wondered if he should inform the world that their technological revolution was far behind Wakanda’s. Some of their social improvements were as well. “You are still ahead in clean energy as far as my own ability to invent goes. But Shuri is ahead of us both and probably everyone else too,” he says.
“Definitely ahead of everyone else, I’d know because she’s way ahead of me and I’m the best the world had to offer. If she’d be willing to distribute her work around the world she’d make some serious money and literally change the world as we know it. Shit, if Wakanda shared what little I’ve seen of the country with the world everything would change. Everything here is absolutely astonishing,” Tony says and T’Challa can feel his appreciation. He can also feel that his appreciation was not tainted by the usual racism that accompanied people’s surprise with his country. Usually when people praised him he got a distinct feeling that Wakanda was impressive for an African country but the last bit remains unspoken.
“I would like to, but the people cling to what they know and they have no desire to share. To be fair I can’t blame them, but it would be beneficial to establish trades. Honestly the entire thing is stressful,” he says, shaking his head. Half the population wanted nothing to do with transitioning into the world, the other half was extremely suspicious, and the small bit of people who didn’t fall into either camp was an extremist group that was quickly gaining too much ground. He needed to put an end to this now but he was unsure how.
Tony lets out a small laugh, “I know how that is. So uh, you done trying to keep me from making sure Rhodey doesn’t do something stupid?” he asks.
T’Challa raises an eyebrow but supposes his motivation wasn’t exactly hidden. “Rhodey requested I distract you. He thinks you are too polite and given the snatches of negotiations I am inclined to agree if for no other reason than the clear communication issues you and the rest of the Avengers have. I would not trust anyone with so much of my resources when they couldn’t even properly communicate regarding the death of a parent. If you have a problem, though, take it up with him,” he says.
Tony shakes his head though, “nah, I got to snoop through all your sister’s designs and figure out how your planes work. I’m happy,” he says.
*
“Do you guys sometimes fly over other countries?” Tony asks T’Challa, clearly excited about something but T’Challa isn’t sure what. He had just wanted to show Tony the stars here. In America there was a lot of light pollution, which was true in Wakanda as well, but they were far enough from the city to see a clear sky that he thought Tony would appreciate. He had too, at least until something occurred to him.
“Sure- sometimes we need to test how far they can fly before we land them. We own several small islands all over the world so we can land if we need gas or supplies. Why?” he asks.
Tony throws his head back and laughs, “because the way your planes work mimic claims of people seeing UFO’s exactly. We thought we’ve been seeing aliens and really it was Wakandans the whole time,” he says, snickering.
T’Challa raises an eyebrow, “UFO?” he asks, unfamiliar with the term.
“Unidentified flying object. Any chance you guys crashed once in Roswell, New Mexico?” he asks and T’Challa frowns.
“I’d have to look it up, but if you happen to have knowledge of a small craft making a crash landing in the late forties, yes, we had one of those,” he says. It had been a disaster for Wakanda, who had been experimenting with long flights at the time but something went wrong with the plane. They still weren’t sure what it was that brought the plane down and frankly he was tired of the conspiracy theories surrounding the event.
Tony, however, looks thrilled. “I solved Roswell! The metal was weird because it was vibranium, and we thought your planes were UFOs because they move unlike anything we’ve ever seen! I solved aliens!” he says excitedly.
T’Challa frowns, “your country came to the conclusion that aliens were more likely than black people? That is just racist,” he says, shaking his head.
“In our defense we had no idea what you guys were up to. I mean if we knew then blamed aliens then we’d be racist. I think we just classify as idiots in this case. The government said it was a weather balloon type thing, and the conspiracy theories around this thing are nuts. Turns out the whole time the government was covering up a crash-landed Wakandan plane. Love it,” he says, shaking his head.
“Please introduce your conspiracy theories to my country’s conspiracy theories. There are many around that damn plane and I am curious to see what the two countries would come up with,” he says. Maybe they could learn to get along if the plane really was what happened in Roswell. Wakanda actually had no idea where it landed so it was possible if unlikely.
T’Challa never paid much attention to the rumors around the craft because the theories were simply ridiculous. The plane had a failure and went down, he saw no reason to assume the entire world was conspiring against them by taking the craft down themselves in an attempt to steal their technology or whatever other ridiculous theory it was. According to Tony America at least wouldn’t have had the technology to do that effectively anyways if they were mistaking planes for weather balloons.
“I should let them at JFK, see what they make of the Magic Bullet Theory,” he says and T’Challa frowns, having no idea what he just said outside of the reference to a president T’Challa was sure was assassinated. But he assumed no one had magic bullets.
He shakes his head, “I suppose this means that many conspiracy theorists will be sad that they were wrong,” he says.
“Nah. They’ll just claim Wakanda is in on covering up aliens and got all their tech from them. Maybe they’ll claim Shuri is an alien or an alien hybrid,” he says, eye shining bright as he considered the possibilities. He would have appreciated the shine of intelligence there if not for the absurd theories Tony was coming up with regarding his poor sibling. T’Challa gives him a horrified look and Tony shrugs, “to get ahead of the conspiracy theorist you have to out conspiracy them. I’m just warming up for all the rumors that are about to get flung around,” he reasons.
“Like the one where we are not smart enough to invent our own technology? Now that one is definitely racist,” he says. Tony winces and he knows he’s right about that one so ha. Even if he still found it offensive that the rest of the world apparently thought aliens were more likely than Wakanda. “And my sister may be an alien but not of the literal sense,” he adds, causing Tony to laugh.
*
Rhodey gives T’Challa a skeptical look and beside him Shuri was doing the same with Tony. “If he breaks my brother’s heart I will kill him,” Shuri tells him, clearly catching on to Tony and T’Challa getting closer. Rhodey probably should have seen it sooner but he’s been busy with the Avengers and all that legal business, plus Ross, plus the regular drama that followed the Avengers everywhere. When he asked T’Challa to distract Tony though he didn’t think they’d start dating not that he was entirely sure either one was aware of that. Clearly he and Shuri were less dense than Tony and T’Challa.
He sighs, “I can’t even threaten death without risking throwing an entire nation into peril. You know what, I’ll kidnap his cat and give it to a loving home in rural Canada. Good luck tracking it down,” he says, pleased with his method of revenge. Wakanda liked their cats, kidnapping one was a mean thing to do in America, here it would an even bigger asshole move. Shuri looks downright horrified with this.
“Not Canada,” she says, “its cold there!”
“Then I guess he better not break Tony’s heart or his cat will be a fresh new Canadian citizen,” Rhodey says. “Also Tony really needs to stay out of conspiracy theories. I get that he’s bored, but now he’s started this whole new thing about Roswell being Wakandan tech and people are all over proving or disproving it. He needs a new hobby,” he says. Tony has always loved messing with people but his new found ability to do it on a global scale and provoking conspiracy theorists who were now tweeting Rhodey was annoying at best.
“Who cares about your Roswell, some idiot has decided I am an alien and I have no idea how to defend myself against that,” she says.
“Claim you’re from another dimension, the only way to win is to out do them. But don’t leave them hanging on aliens, tell them Steve is an alien hybrid because that super soldier serum was actually alien blood,” he says, making hat up on the spot and its so good he’s shocked no one has come up with it before.
Shuri snickers, “Captain America is an illegal alien- literally,” she says in an ominous tone and Rhodey realizes his mistake immediately when she eyes up Tony in a whole new way. Suddenly T’Challa’s budding relationship with Tony seemed a lot less important- he needed to warn T’Challa of them immediately because this was not going to be good.