Chapter 2
T’Challa makes the mistake of looking up one Tony Stark after gathering his cat’s rescuer’s name. It takes him all of five minutes to hate the man, and another seven to wonder is the person he spoke to on his porch was even the same guy. The Tony he spoke to was confident, certainly, but somewhat reserved, disinterested in much than what T’Challa had been willing to offer at the time. The man from the press conferences, paparazzi, and other miscellaneous videos was… an absolute ass. He would not have been the kind of person T’Challa would have given the time of day to anyways, which made him wonder what changed.
That took him an embarrassingly long time to find, but he eventually learned of Tony’s father’s death by his own weapon, Tony’s capture, and his shutting down the weapons sector of his company immediately after coming home. He lost a lot of money and people were happy to remind him of it too, but his decision never faltered. The man from those videos resembled the man T’Challa spoke to far more closely than what he found to begin with. He skims through the information, absentmindedly petting Jujube as he gathers more on Tony, trying to figure out who he was dealing with.
“Of course the person that drew your attention most is a man. Dad should have predicted that,” Shuri says, not bothering to knock as she walks in. He resists throwing something at her to force her back out of his room, settling for glaring at her instead.
“He was interesting, that is hardly my fault,” he says, nose in the air. He did not need to explain himself to his sister.
“Russia seems interesting, I don’t even remember this one,” Shuri says, waving a hand at T’Challa’s computer screen. She would be the only one; everyone else in Tony’s home country seemed to have a hard time forgetting who he was.
“If you find Russia interesting you marry her,” T’Challa mumbles, “and this is Tony Stark. I would have hated him two years ago but he seems alright now.” He hoped anyways, usually he was not wrong in his ability to read people but no one was perfect.
“Very mature, T’Challa,” Shuri says dryly, “so what made this one stand out?” she asks. Good question, one he keeps asking himself as his thoughts keep wandering back to the image of Tony leaning over the railing of that balcony wiggling his fingers at Jujube.
“I am not sure at the moment,” he admits, “but something is very… drawing about him. And Jujube likes him.” The cat disliked near everyone, including T’Challa some days, so her liking Tony was something of an anomaly.
“Of course your ignorant hairball likes him,” Shuri says, sneering at Jujube. The cat lifts her head and blinks a few times before realizing Shuri is looking at her, then she hisses in annoyance, swatting at the air between her body and Shuri’s. “Annoying animal,” Shuri mumbles, “so you find him drawing. Why? I don’t see anything particularly special about him,” she says. She tilts her head at the computer screen in question, frowning at what she found there.
“Then it is a good thing you are not going to marry him then,” he points out, earning a raised eyebrow from his sibling. “What? It is a possibility, and I like him better than most of the rest.” Minus Russia, not that he was going to tell her that. He couldn’t remember the redhead’s name now but she had the quite confidence he was used to from the Dora Milaje. It had endeared her to him, and it did not hurt that she is attractive and clearly intelligent though she did not say much to him. That alone had been a blessing; she and Tony were the only ones who hadn’t introduced themselves using long monologs about who they were. At this point he did not care who they were, he had wanted a basic introduction, not an entire life’s story. The ‘getting to know you’ stage was supposed to come later.
Shuri sighs, “this is not going to go over well,” she warns.
“Then perhaps our father should have considered what would happen if he decided to marry his son off for political purposes,” he snaps. He takes a breath to calm himself but he is still unhappy with the situation. He loved his father of course, he’s a good man and a great king, but this was not what T’Challa had in mind when he learned of his father’s plan to integrate them into the world.
*
Wakanda had some weird looking fish but they were at least pretty, even if Tony has never seen a fish that particular shade of blue before. The rest of the house was crawling with a bunch of alphas trying to one up each other for the affections of a person who wasn’t even present so Tony had gone out side. He never had liked this part of being an alpha, battling it out for omega’s affections and he rarely indulged. If someone wanted to pay attention to him they would, if not then he wasn’t about to make a strenuous effort for attention. Too be fair he rarely had to fight for attention, he happened to be the naturally interesting type.
So, despite his disliking chasing after omega’s affections, he was often portrayed as the ultimate alpha because they all seemed to toss themselves at his feet. He hadn’t ever been truly comfortable with that- it was too close to his father’s own reputation for comfort- but it was a space he knew how to operate well in so he never said anything. Then Afghanistan happened and Howard was dead, he was held captive, and when he got back he knew what he had to do.
Everyone called him crazy or laughed at him, claiming he had no clue what he was doing and they weren’t completely wrong. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he did know that ending weapons sales was the right thing to do. He’d never forget that loud blast, all the scrambling and then… then he noticed the bomb and so had Howard, at the same time. Tony knew he had a few seconds at best to act so he had gotten up to try and save his father as Howard had gotten up to try and run. The bomb went off, blasting Howard in the chest and the bulletproof vest hadn’t been enough to save him. Yinsen had tried when those terrorists found them, but there was only so much he could do with the heart of a man with a life-long drinking problem who also happened to be older.
Howard died, and Tony was then persuaded into building those terrorists a bomb. He did the best he could to thwart their plans but he was in a fucking cave with no way out except the one he had been building. He had to cooperate as much as possible so that he could get out, get Yinsen out. Then Yinsen died and he managed to escape and Rhodey found him, nearly dead and severely dehydrated but alive. When he got home he had been determined to start fresh no matter how hard Obi tried to keep that from happening. In the last two years he hemorrhaged a huge amount of funds and he gained even more back since starting up his bid for clean energy. People hadn’t believed in his plan, but they were idiots with no imagination or business sense. Tony is a genius, and he intended to use that genius for something other than killing people for profit. What was the point of his brain if he didn’t use it to help?
“You look like you’re concentrating awfully hard on those fish,” someone says, a slight Russian accent tingeing their voice. Tony looks up and finds that stunning redhead he had seen here last night looking down at him with a slight tilt to her lips.
“Nah. The fish are boring, it’s everything else I’m thinking about,” he says.
“Think you have a chance?” she asks, carefully sitting down beside him.
“Hell no. God knows he’d deserve better even if I did. Though I am curious about you- everyone else here is some kind of politician or whatever, but I don’t recognize your face,” he says.
The redhead raises an eyebrow, “well I certainly recognize you. Natasha Romanov,” she says, extending a slim hand that looked delicate but hid a surprising amount of strength.
“Romanov? As in… Russian royalty?” he asks, frowning. He thought the Romanovs died out some time ago but apparently not.
He gets a bigger smile, “there are a few of us lingering. We just don’t advertise ourselves loudly- people tend to want us dead,” she says.
“No shit,” Tony mumbles, “so, you think you have a chance?” he asks because he had nothing better to ask.
“If I play my cards right. Why bother showing up if you have no interest though?” she asks, head tilted to the side. Scoping out the competition, really.
“Pushy business partner. But I guess we’ll see how this all goes,” Tony says. There wasn’t much else they could do really, other than wait for T’Challa to approve or disapprove.
*
In the week following the arrival of far too many alphas T’Challa manages to comfortably rid himself of almost half of them. Most were either ignorant, not his type in a number of other ways, annoying, or politically terrible for Wakanda. His father was at least pleased that he had considered Wakanda’s politics in his decision making process. He wanted to point out that he would obviously consider Wakanda’s politics given that this whole thing was designed to benefit the country. He wasn’t entirely sure where he fit into the equation- other than being the pawn that was being used to push his country forward. It was an instrumental role in his country’s future, but his personhood was sort of lost in the mix.
He understood why his father had gone this route and he did not resent him for it, but he did wish that they had talked about this more before he was thrown in the middle of a situation he had no idea how to handle. A king, his father would argue, would have to make tough decisions. T’Challa agreed though he wouldn’t have thought those decisions would have anything to do with his love life of all things. Worse than that, he was stuck making quick judgments that may not be rational, or he was stuck making snap judgments based on gifts he received. Too be fair most of what he had received were not gifts that were specific to him.
Most of the things he had gotten were generic and easy- things people would assume someone would want, not things he had any actual interest in. Jewelry was a popular gift much to his annoyance. He had zero interest in jewels or gold and he has told more than one person that those things were meaningless in Wakandan culture- so his continuing to receive those things was irksome. And it proved that those particular people had no listening skills, or at least they had little interest in listening to him. Those were obviously not traits that he desired in a marriage or a political partnership.
Given Tony’s somewhat ambiguous presence here he had not expected a gift, so when he receives one he’s surprised. “Jujubes?” he asks, head tilted at the package of candy in his hand before he starts laughing, “this is fantastic. Though I am curious as to how you managed this,” he says. Getting foreign food into the country would have been a hassle on its own let alone getting permission to hand it to T’Challa directly. That must have taken time, effort. It made T’Challa curious as to what kinds of efforts Tony would go through if he truly believed in his cause when he was willing to deal with what T’Challa knew would be a world of pain for a practical joke.
Tony grins, “I have my ways,” he says. Ways T’Challa was going to find out about because this would not have been an easy task. Not everyone agreed with the King’s plan to open them up to the rest of the world, certainly not all of the Dora Milaje, so how Tony managed to get foreign food directly to him was a mystery. And, of course, it was the only gift to date that showed any thought to T’Challa himself minus a small cat figurine he got from one Natasha Romanov.
“Candy?” someone else- T’Challa was not sure where they were from- says in a snarky tone. “Really?”
“Have you not met his cat?” Tony asks casually, earning a stumped look from the other alpha, “oh. Well then you wouldn’t get it,” he says, waving a hand around flippantly. The jealousy was immediate though Tony paid no attention to that. Instead he refocused his attention on T’Challa, “since I assumed you like jujubes I figured I’d get you some. Pretty sure they don’t have those here.”
“We do not,” T’Challa confirms, “and I do like them. I went to Oxford for my Masters degree and discovered them there.” He was rather sad to leave them behind but he figured his lovely cat was a reasonable compromise, even if Shuri thought he was a fool for naming his cat after a candy that he is fond of.
“Oh, I have a friend that went to Oxford. Well, a few technically but counting the people I actually like that’d be one,” Tony says, waving a hand around.
“Are you willing to give a name?” he asks, curious if he knew Tony’s friend. Probably not realistically but some people stood out enough to notice- like Tony himself. He was strangely… bright, attractive in a way that was not just related to his looks. T’Challa wanted to know more about him, learn more about what made him so drawing.
“Charles Xavier?” Tony says, eyebrow raised.
“The one who used that weird pickup line about mutations?” he asks, frowning. He was one of those bright people too, but he always rubbed T’Challa the wrong way- like younger Tony had before he seemed to have mellowed out some.
Tony laughs, “that’s the guy. He stopped with the bad pickup lines, though.”
“Well that is a relief, they were nearly as bad as yours when you were younger,” he says. Curiously Tony’s face closes off some, like T’Challa has said something wrong.
“I’ve learned better,” Tony says somewhat stiffly, offering an obviously fake smile.
T’Challa’s eyebrows draw together at the almost chilly reception but he chooses to ignore it. “So my research tells me. Most of your life is documented online and I must admit your ability to turn your company around after such a high stock drop is… well I would have assumed it was impossible. You are clearly competent in achieving what you set out to do,” he says. Unlike many of the other alphas here, actually. Many of them had high ambitions but not many have achieved their goals. Tony, however, managed to be part of a successful company from a young age and then he reinvented the company from nearly the ground up pretty much overnight and made profits even after considering everything he lost initially. And he was now running one of the most successful companies in the world.
That was not something to overlook lightly, and neither was his effort to buy something for T’Challa instead of whatever they assumed he would want. Thus far he was the only one who actually listened to T’Challa when he said he was not fond of the jewelry he received. And the gift was not something that would have been easy to get into the country let alone managing to gain enough trust to hand it to T’Challa personally.
Tony, thankfully, seems to thaw some with T’Challa’s explanation. “I’ve never been very easy to take down once I had my mind made up,” Tony says with an almost shy smile, “it’s a good and bad quality.”
“It seems to work for you either way,” T’Challa points out. As much as he wished politics is not as clean and easy as he would like- Tony clearly had a kind of intelligence he could use for his own ends.
“Whether it works for the people most affected by my actions should be the concern,” Tony says. T’Challa recognizes the look on his face, the one he had at the press conference where he announced the end of weapons sales.
“I agree, but not many do.” The benefit of the many was the typical argument, but T’Challa found that more often than not the many was synonymous with the powerful. Idealistically he would like what was best for everyone, but realistically he would only be able to do his best with what he had.
“Not many who disagree are the people who are concerned with the consequences of the powerful. I know I wasn’t until I lived out what happened with my weapons. I shouldn’t have needed that to know what I was doing was wrong, but here we are. I learned my lesson and now I try to do right by people as best I can.” T’Challa smiles at Tony’s words, nodding because his views meshed nicely with T’Challa’s own views.
*
Shuri gives him a look, “you cannot like that one,” she says.
“He is the only one who has even paid attention to what I like, and he is successful, and cute,” he adds. “That last one is frivolous but the first two are useful so I feel entitled to look.”
“Stark looks vaguely like a bird and business is not politics,” Shuri points out.
“Business is involved with politics- his expertise is relevant. And he likes science, I like science, no one else here knows anything about engineering and that makes me sad.” He cannot possibly give up his science, he loved engineering and that was his only solace from the boring life of politics he was now doomed to.
“No one cares about your sadness, we all care about Wakanda so do not choose the bird-looking man because he likes science. That is a terrible method of choosing a partner,” she says.
“As opposed to what, Shuri? Ensuring a lifetime of unhappiness for myself? Because that will certainly not benefit Wakanda if I grow to resent the country because I was forced into a marriage I wanted nothing to do with,” he says, “I will choose who I see is the most fit. Besides, that Russian redhead is pleasant enough and she gave me a cat figurine.”
“Then marry the redhead,” Shuri says.
“A political affiliation with Russia though? I am not certain that is a wise move politically.” Shuri gives him a look but he has thought about this extensively. He knew very well that he was to choose wisely so he could benefit Wakanda- even if he was to sacrifice his own wants and needs in the process. It was not something he particularly wanted to do but he knew that this was a necessary move politically for his country. Sacrifice was always necessary for the King- and he would make this one no matter how much he did not want to.
“Do not choose with your heart, T’Challa. This is not a time to be selfish,” Shuri warns. T’Challa knew that, but there has never been a time in his life when he was allowed selfishness. He understood why, but he liked to think he should get one thing to himself and he assumed it would have been his marriage partner should he have chosen to get married. Now he did not have that either and it left him somewhat lost.