Like most things in Tony’s life it all started with him spending time with someone, people getting pictures, and the media making up some ridiculous shit about his personal life that quickly spiraled into conspiracy theories.
When he wakes up on Wednesday things are pretty normal- he slept for too long after staying up too late again and T’Challa was making him breakfast in the kitchen. T’Challa wasn’t always around but after their working together to get the Avengers off their charges and back into America they sort of hit it off. Tony hasn’t really been one for paying much attention to his attraction to men- too much shit from his father internalized he guessed- but he couldn’t seem to shake his appreciation for T’Challa. Seriously, his ass in that cat suit should be illegal material.
“Did you sleep well?” T’Challa asks as he walks over and presses his forehead to T’Challa’s shoulder. He liked to ignore the height difference because he was not as short as people liked to think he was and he didn’t have to stand on boxes to look taller than Pepper for magazines. Not that they appeared together often these days but still. In the suit he was over six feet tall, which is taller than Steve so he was not short at all. Peter was absolutely not taller than him at fifteen.
“I slept fine. When did you get here?” he asks. He wasn’t hear last night- Wakandan business called him away earlier in the week. He would have been upset about it if he hadn’t ended up spending the entire week helping Peter through exams and super villains. He was brilliant but biology was not his strength. Strange considering how much time he spent beating people up- you’d think he’d know a few things by now but nope.
“Not long ago. FRIDAY let me in. Flying here is so strange; it is a nine hour flight yet I got here two hours after I left. Time zones,” he says, shaking his head and smiling down at Tony.
“Yeah, yeah. Imagine losing all that time- it always screws up my system but thankfully I happen to be an insomniac so that doesn’t matter too much,” he says in a chipper tone. “So what’s cooking? Because I have never seen any of that stuff before.” He wondered how, exactly, T’Challa managed to get foreign food into the country. Actually he wanted to see someone challenge T’Challa on it because the king had a presence and it tended to be intimidating.
“You better appreciate Wakandan food, if you do not I may have to leave you,” T’Challa says but he smiles so Tony knows it’s a joke, even if his stomach twists uncomfortably.
“I’m sure I will. It smells good,” he says, sniffing at the air. It sort of pissed him off that all the other Avengers got to experience all this and Wakanda first but he supposed none of them got any of the joy of dating T’Challa so he was winning.
“Lovely. So, out of curiosity do you have anything to tell me?” T’Challa asks almost too casually.
Tony ignores his instinct to answer immediately and thinks about it. Nothing immediately comes to mind nor does anything else seem relevant upon examination, “not that I know of. Uh… I’m thinking of getting a cat,” he says when T’Challa frowns a little at him.
“You are sure that you have nothing to tell me? Because I do not appreciate secrets,” he says and Tony pulls away.
“Yeah, neither do I. Did you forget the whole deal in which one of my best friends lied to me about the circumstances of my parent’s deaths for two years? I’m not keeping anything from you,” he says with perhaps too much attitude. T’Challa doesn’t look convinced, which pisses Tony off more at least until T’Challa hands him this morning’s news paper with a picture of him and Peter eating lunch on it. “Oh my god, did you really buy into this?” he asks, laughing at the first paragraph outlining the possibility of Peter being Tony’s fucking kid. This was a new development in the mystery of Tony spending time with Peter actually, and honestly that was just too good…
“I do not find this amusing, you did not mention children aside from saying that you do not like them,” T’Challa says.
“I don’t like them and I don’t have them, but this is good, I like this. I’m gunna use this,” he says, pulling out his phone so he could stir these rumors up a little. He wanted to see what would happen. T’Challa, however, does not find the fake news about the potential for Peter to be Tony’s son amusing.
*
Peter is confused by the sudden interest in himself by both his peers and Tony but he’d take it because the only reason he was even getting a good grade in biology was because of Tony. And he was having a difficult time processing the physics unit his teacher recently started so Tony’s help was greatly appreciated.
“Okay,” Ned says, “what does he eat for breakfast?” He says this slowly and seriously because Ned is surprisingly invested in the weirdly personal details of Tony Stark’s personal life.
“I don’t know, toast?” Peter says. He’s never seen Tony eat breakfast; actually he’s never even seen Tony before noon. Huh.
“You need to find out,” Ned says, still very serious.
“Why? Its just breakfast. What will knowing what he eats do for you?” he asks. It’s a legitimate question because he is genuinely confused as to why Ned thought this was relevant.
“Because, Peter, I need to absorb his awesomeness through like… osmosis,” Ned says.
“That is not osmosis works Ned, osmosis is-”
“Keep the science talk to a minimum and text your good friend Tony Stark and ask what he eats for breakfast.” Peter sighs and pulls out his phone much to Ned’s delight and texts Tony what he eats for breakfast. Ned squeals and flails his limbs around, reminding Peter of all those teen girl going to a boy band concert stereotypes. Tony answers that he’s rarely awake during breakfast hours so he usually just eats lunch. Ned’s eyes get large as he proclaims that he does that too, which was completely irrelevant but Peter figured he’d let Ned have his moment.
*
May was sure that Ben's brother’s wife had never cheated on him but those rumors were starting to become fairly convincing. People have done side-by-side comparisons of Peter’s and Tony’s faces and they looked surprisingly alike at certain angles…
She sets down her morning coffee and reads this week’s theory on Peter’s parentage, finding out that he was now linked back to some model Tony slept with years ago. She looked shockingly similar to Peter too and now she was starting to wonder if perhaps her brother in law adopted his child…
*
Tony sends off another flurry of suspect tweets while giggling, ignoring the annoyed look on T’Challa’s face. “Come on, it’s hilarious! They think Peter is mine, that’s so funny!” It was even funnier that they were falling for his trolling perfectly. Even Peter was playing along wonderfully, responding to his bad dad jokes with the typical ‘aww dad’ responses one would expect from a teenager. The media was eating it up and honestly he enjoyed Peter’s company outside of this media mess anyways. The kid is bright and charismatic, he still believed there was good in the world and after all the darkness that seemed to have taken over his life Peter was a breath of fresh air.
He was still excited over new video gams coming out for gods sake. The last time Tony was as excited as Peter in regards to… well, anything was so far back in his life he actually had no memory of it. It was nice to be around someone so optimistic every once and awhile.
“Wakanda is not impressed,” T’Challa says, giving him a look. Most people would find that rather intimidating but Tony knew T’Challa well enough that he knew it was mostly harmless. It didn’t sop him from nearly blurting out that Wakanda can suck it but he thankfully thinks better of that.
“Wakanda has no fun, come on, trolling the media is a favorite past time. Let a guy live.” Peter responds to Tony’s tweets perfectly, playing into the father son relationship they had going nicely. He needed to get this kid a better gift than a suit upgrade. Maybe he’ll get the kid a puppy or something, that was totally a gift a parent would get for a kid. He knew that because Howard never got him a puppy. Or a kitten. Or even a lizard, he could have gone for an iguana. Rhodey would have hated it given how much he hated bugs, lizards, or anything else that he deemed a ‘creepy crawly’ but Tony personally thought iguanas were cool.
T’Challa squints, “trolling?” he asks, clearly not understanding.
“Yeah, trolling. Its like saying deliberately offensive things to piss people off, or, in this case, purposefully spreading fake rumors with the intent on getting a reaction. Seriously, the media is actually under the impression that a few brunch dates and some tweets mean that Peter is my child. What idiot would believe such a poorly constructed story?” he asks.
T’Challa remains confused for a long moment, “for the moment I will let your purposefully instigating the media and leading them to believe false stories about your progeny alone. Lets go back to the trolling. Trolling is deliberately saying offensive things to elicit a response, yes?” he asks and Tony nods. T’Challa’s confusion obviously deepens, “America has entire political parties dedicated to doing that. Why does America have entire political parties dedicated to trolling the country? And why do they get votes? Is the population not in on the joke?” he asks.
Tony throws back his head and laughs so hard he stops making noise, prompting FRIDAY to remind him that he needed to breathe. He was saving that one for later.
*
T’Challa is annoyed about this Peter thing in part because the media consisted of people who were obviously terrible at their jobs and in part because T’Challa very much wondered if Tony was lying about Peter being his son. He certainly treated Peter like a son regardless of whether or not they were biologically related and he was growing tired of Tony denying the connection.
So, to prove a point he decides to pay Peter a visit. Actually, Peter paid him a visit in Wakanda. “So… let me get this straight,” Peter says, “you decided that because Tony is like… my kind of dad but not really you were going to kidnap me? What is this supposed to prove? And what is with this parent thing? Ned keeps brining it up and I don’t get it.”
“I sent two Dora Milaje to retrieve you from school. You are enhanced, if you truly wanted to escape you could have with no issues. Your presence here may be morally dubious but I have no intention on harming you, plus you get a free vacation. The point is to prove to Tony that denying the strange father child relationship the two of you have is useless,” he says. Then perhaps the media could focus their attentions elsewhere. Like on his relationship with Tony that continually got labeled as a business relationship when it clearly was not. “Chocolate?” he asks, pushing a small dish of Wakandan chocolate towards Peter.
“Is it poisoned?” he asks, eyeing the dish suspiciously.
“Of course not, why would I do that to the chocolate?”
Peter squints, is that supposed to make me feel better?” he asks.
Twelve hours later Peter Parker had a billion dollar reward over his head and T’Challa was fully prepared to use this as evidence against Tony the next time he denied that he and Peter had a true connection. Peter, at least, thaws to him some and enjoys the rest of his weekend in Wakanda. Like any normal teen he ends up in trouble but T’Challa lets it go. How was he supposed to know that particular lake was sacred? Tony is very unimpressed with T"Challa when he finds out what happened but he thaws a little when Peter happily tells him all about his adventures in Wakanda. He also stops denying his relationship to Peter is not personal, which was the point so T'Challa was satisfied.
*
Tony starts looking for a replacement for himself when he gets just a little too hurt and nearly dies, scaring the hell out of T’Challa. He’d never be able to confirm it but he was certain that T’Challa managed to slip him some of that herb thing that enhanced him, though Tony figured he only got enough to temporarily enhance his healing abilities with no lasting effects. He’d be interested in studying the herb but he knew that T’Challa would never be willing to give any of it up for testing.
T’Challa sits down beside him and wraps an arm around his waist, “the media thinks we are involved in business and I am annoyed of it so I figured that I would wear an ‘I heart Tony Stark’ shirt to prove a point. This morning the media decided that our business deal must be going well. I dislike American media- Wakanda has had our relationship figured out for months,” he says, laments really.
“To be fair I’m not exactly known for dating men,” he says, scrolling through a curious news article about a fifteen year old that supposedly reverse engineered his suit. Hmm.
“We are seen together often, we also tend to work together on superhero issues more often than you work with the Avengers, I wore a shirt that out and out stated that I love you, what else does the American media need? They fabricated several stories about Peter Parker being your son but no one has even guessed that we are in a relationship despite the abundance of pictures of my arm around your waist. What kind of business deals do they think we are conducting?” he asks, shaking his head. Alright, T’Challa had a fair point about that last bit but Obadiah often led him around with a hand on the small of his back like T’Challa. It’s a stretch, but Tony could see the clear connection.
When he tells T’Challa that he get a very unimpressed look and instructions to never compare him to Obadiah ever again.
*
Tony finds one Riri Williams at MIT in the basement fiddling with armor that was pretty damn close to his own. So the article was right, then, not some bullshit someone came up with. He had a hard time trusting media these days when Peter was now his illegitimate child and his relationship with T’Challa was only just upgraded to ‘bromance’. When Tony explained the term to T’Challa he had let out a long sigh and informed Tony that he was going back to Wakanda. On his way to the car, though, he kissed Tony goodbye. That was general saved for spaces where cameras weren’t flashing brightly everywhere and Tony was honestly looking forward to what the media would do with that.
“Your designs are good. Not as good as mine, but given that you’re making this out of lab scraps and the hopes and dreams of children- literally considering your age- this is good. Really good,” he says to Riri, lifting a gauntlet. The repulsor was nowhere near as good as his but the design was more than functional. It looked like she was well on her way to creating a completely separate design for the technology and it looked like it would be just as good as his own or better given time to develop. Hmm.
Riri jumps, throwing a wrench that she was holding and spinning fast, “what the hell- oh my god you’re Tony Stark,” she blurts awkwardly.
“I head about the suit and I’m impressed. How good are you with this thing?” he asks.
*
Peter watches as Tony and Riri take to the sky, going through some basic exercises with the suit. Riri was wearing her own design and Peter had to admit he was impressed with her ability to build stuff. He’s always been a bit of a scavenger but he wasn’t even as remotely good with tech as Riri was.
“I disapprove of the amount of teenagers Tony is collecting. You were more than enough,” T’Challa tells him though he isn’t unkind about it. Peter honestly couldn’t believe he was casually sitting around with the king of Wakanda watching Iron Man do training exercises with some other fifteen year old he found in MIT. This was his life now, casually hanging out with superheroes. Holy shit.
“In his defense she’s really good. Also my Aunt May loves your chocolate,” he says. She had been off on a business trip for Peter’s impromptu vacation so she hadn’t known he was missing, but she really loved the chocolate he brought back. Unfortunately he had no explanation for where he got the chocolate. Lying about the media claiming he was missing was bad enough, he didn't want to come up with some weird story about where he got the chocolate.
T’Challa’s lip twitch up some, “she has good taste,” he says, just a hint of mischief on his tone.
“Yeah… except I can’t really tell her that I got it when I got lowkey kidnapped by the King of Wakanda that one time. So can you get me more? I’ll love you forever. Actually, I’ll probably love you forever anyways because your Black Panther and that’s really cool and if Ned, a friend of mine, knew that I was hanging out with you he’d probably shit. I’m going to shut up now because I’m being really embarrassing and I need to stop. So I’m stopping. Right now. Oh god my brain really hates me, Jesus I need to-”
“Sometimes, in moments like this, I do wonder if you’re actually Tony’s son. He does the same thing when he is nervous, you know,” T’Challa tells him, saving him from his own embarrassing brain.
“Tony gets nervous?” he blurts out, shocked that Tony Stark could be nervous about anything. He’s Tony Stark.
“Of course. But you are not, right? His son I mean,” T’Challa clarifies.
“Uh, as far as I know I am not. Did you see the new conspiracy theories though?” he asks excitedly, remembering belatedly that T’Challa was the King of Wakanda, he didn’t care about gossip.
T’Challa sighs, “if it is another ridiculous conspiracy theory about my kissing Tony being some strange Wakandan tradition I do not want to see it. How is it possible for American media to misread a kiss? We are together and I have done everything in my power to make that obvious but apparently we are bromancing business partners who sometimes kiss because Wakanda. Absolutely absurd,” he mumbles, shaking his head. Peter files that information away for later because he totally won his bet with Ned, he totally knew that Tony has been spending all this time making googly eyes at T’Challa.
“Actually it’s about Riri, still interested?” he asks. T’Challa signs but gestures for him to continue. Peter hands over his phone with this morning’s headline on it because it would do a better job explaining than he would. T’Challa out and out groans when he sees the headline.
“For the love of god you Americans need some real journalists,” he says, handing Peter his phone back and picking himself up off the ground. Peter watches for a moment as he walks away just to be sure he wasn’t coming back and starts furiously texting Ned about all the new developments around Tony. Ned was particularly amused with T’Challa’s reaction to the newest conspiracy theory about Riri being Tony’s long lost child from some other woman he slept with years ago. Peter thought it was hilarious too, especially because the media caught wind of her suit so all the headlines were centered around whether or not being a genius superhero ran in Tony’s blood or something.
*
Riri hadn’t expected insta fame or anything when she started building the suit, she just wanted to see if she could do it and her classes weren’t challenging her enough. Tony said some of her designs for her suit had the potential to be better than his own and honestly that was probably the coolest thing that has ever happened to her. Actually no, supposedly being Tony’s kid was the best thing that has ever happened to her and Tony played along with her jokes and references. It helped that they actually had a lot in common and fooling the media was hilarious even if her mom absolutely did not approve.
It was a good thing, she figured, that she didn’t know about the Iron Man thing. Technically she was Iron Woman and that was going to annoy her but Tony was adamant that she pretend to be him for awhile. If Iron Man was targeted, he told her, the villain of the week would go after him instead of her. It kept her and her mother safe and she didn’t disagree, but she was also aware of Tony’s recent health issues so she didn’t really want to put a target on his back. T’Challa had been the one to convince her that it was for the best in the end with the assurance that if someone were to hurt Tony they would not live long enough to regret it. The king had a presence and Riri really didn’t want to be on his bad side.
So she wore a voice modulator in the helmet that made her sound like Peter and flew around with him dealing with low-grade villains with him while she learned. It was all fun and games until Iron Man got a request to go deal with Red Skull, who apparently was not dead, with the rest of the Avengers. Thankfully she hadn’t had much time to freak out over the whole thing because Tony called and gave her instructions via the helmet on how to avoid certain death via Red Skull while simultaneously scolding her for taking the call instead of letting him deal with it.
But what else was she supposed to do? Let Tony go in and deal with it with who knows what health problems and maybe die? That would be terrible, plus she totally had the whole hero thing right up until Captain America started giving her instructions that differed from Tony’s and she had no clue who to follow. In the end she got scolded by the Avengers too given that she ended up next to useless and almost got shot out of the sky by some blasty thing that she did, in her defense, end up dismantling when no one was looking. All in all pretending to be Tony’s kid was way easier than pretending to be Tony.
*
“America has finally caught up with Wakanda,” T’Challa says, dropping down into the bed beside Tony. He curls into T’Challa’s side and takes comfort in his warmth, trying to forget the earlier freaking out that he had been doing over the phone while Riri froze, unsure whether to follow his instructions or Steve’s. Steve was a brilliant strategist and Tony would never deny that but his instructions were based on Riri’s suits capabilities. Steve knew what Tony’s suit could do and his instructions were based off that. And the assumption that it was Tony in the suit, not a fifteen year old with a brilliant mind, at least when it came to tech. Riri had frozen and Tony got it, but she was discouraged when Steve lost it on her for freezing. Unfortunately he also related to that, but when Steve yelled at him in his defense Tony had usually done something exceptionally stupid. Riri, she just needed some time and Steve had no clue it wasn’t Tony in the suit.
That knowledge didn’t seem to make her feel any better. “So we stopped being a bromance?” Tony asks, lifting his head to grin at T’Challa.
T’Challa’s bright smile served as a lovely distraction from his preoccupation with Riri and whether or not she was alright. “Finally. I have been making our relationship considerably obvious for some time now and I do not appreciate the media’s extreme methods of dismissing our clear affections for each other. They lack basic observation skills and call it journalism.”
Tony smiles and lays hi head back on T’Challa’s chest, happy that he was annoyed with the media ignoring their relationship. It wasn’t exactly often that he had people get defensive over not being recognized as an important part of Tony’s life. Usually people wanted a five seconds of fame thing or they out and out wanted nothing to do with him in general.
“Oh, before I forget Sam wants some… I don’t know, itchy Wakandan plant? I have no clue what that means or what he wants with itchy leaves but he wants some itchy leaves.” Sam had been adamant about it too; making sure three times that Tony would ask T’Challa about the plant.
*
Tony, Riri, and Peter all drink their coffee in an attempt to wake up a little when T’Challa all but storms in with a newspaper. “Who is Harley Keener and why do you have another child?” he asks, shaking the paper in annoyance.
“Harley is a kid I met a few years ago doing the superhero thing. Good kid, smart too. His mom doesn’t have much money so I offered to pay for schooling,” Tony says. Harley shouldn’t suffer because he didn’t have money and Tony has a ton of it, he might as well share it.
“Why in the world does the media think his one is related to you too?” T’Challa asks.
“Probably because we’ve been communicating back and forth for a few years now, I pay for his education, and he’s a pretty big Iron Man fan. Seems like a logical conclusion. And no, Harley is by no means related to me, he just helped me out with the Mandarin once and I figured I’d stick around in his life a little.” He kept his distance a little still, but he made sure to always answer of Harley wrote or emailed, and made sure to check in on the kid often. He had been helpful to Tony when no one else was; it was only fair to repay the debt.
“I am tired of the American media assuming anything that is under eighteen is your illegitimate child,” T’Challa mumbles, continuing to mumble in his native language about Americans. There were a few curse words in there too, but he doesn’t fill anyone else in on what he’s saying.
“Technically- and this does not leave this room- I’m old enough to have children that are eighteen or older. We do not acknowledge that outside these four walls,” Tony says, gesturing around the room.
“Then you might want to dye your hair,” Riri tells him, grinning, “you’re a little grey. Also has no one told T’Challa about the new child conspiracy theories?” she asks.
“There’s something new?” Peter asks. “I don’t know, but my Aunt May is almost convinced that I might be your son. Which I’m not,” Peter says to Tony specifically.
Tony presses his hand to his hair self-consciously, “I’m not actually grey am I? I thought it was all still brown.”
“There is grey in the back,” T’Challa tells him, “what new conspiracy theory? God help me, I am invested in how ridiculous American media has gotten this week.” He shakes his head, clearly disappointed in himself.
“I have grey hair in the back and none of you told me? FRIDAY, order me hair dye,” he tells the AI.
“So this week the media is totally convinced that I’m your illegitimate child and that’s why I’ve been hanging around you and Tony so much,” Riri says gleefully to T’Challa.
“I like the grey, it looks nice on you- wait, did you just say the media is under the impression that you are my child?” T’Challa asks, switching train of thought in a matter of seconds once his brain catches up to Riri’s words.
“So daddo, what father daughter bonding thing are we going to do in public today?” Riri asks, laughing at the absolute horror on T’Challa’s face.