Chapter 6
T’Challa does not want to move, does not want to function, but he was stuck in the unfortunate position as King. All his life he has wanted to be King, to be able to prove himself as both a leader and an omega and now that he was in that position he wanted nothing more than to take it back. Of course he had considered the circumstances in which he would take over, but he never imagined it would have anything to do with his father’s death. He assumed that his father would grow old and step down, not that he would be… be… He shakes his head, unwilling to think of the circumstances of his father’s death.
And now… now he was supposed to solve the crime committed. That would be fine- he was certainly angry enough to want to prosecute the responsible party- the problem was that everyone seemed to have already decided they found the perpetrator. He did not want to believe Tony was guilty for personal reasons, but the reason he did not believe Tony was guilty was due to a discrepancy of time. He examined and re-examined his stance, checking for bias but each time he passed over the evidence the timeframe did not add up. The explosion was far too close to the time he and Tony had left the forest and T’Challa watched him walk in the opposite direction of his father’s room. He knew his home well- Tony would not have been able to simply go down another hallway to end up in his father’s wing.
The rough timeframe that T’Challa made- and the one the Dora Milaje have already agreed was accurate- meant that Tony could not have been behind his father’s assassination because he would have had to be in two places at once. Unless he invented some sort of teleportation device that was not possible. Tony might be a genius but T’Challa had a sneaking suspicion his inventions were not that advanced. The problem was to convince the Dora Milaje that he as correct and then find who was actually responsible for his father’s murder and he knew full well he was going to be told that he was not seeing things correctly. They could very well be right but he doubted they were seeing things correctly- Wakanda is a tight knit country, the entire population was now in mourning over their lost leader. It would be foolish to assume anyone here could be objective but they had to try, otherwise they would end up persecuting the wrong person. That was not the kind of legacy T’Challa wanted to make for himself of his country.
*
In the defense of the Dora Milaje if Tony didn’t know for sure that he didn’t off the King of Wakanda he would have assumed he was guilty too. The evidence more than suggested that, though he certainly could have gone without the pictures to go along with said evidence. His disgust, apparently, did not indicate innocence of some sort. So now he was currently chained to a table repeating the same damn answers to the questions the Dora Milaje had for him. The only thing that has changed was the answers to any technical questions they had, which they all took as a sign of guilt instead of knowledge on how to build a fucking bomb. Of course he knew how to make use of various materials, he worked in weapons for longer than he didn’t- that didn’t make him guilty of anything. Well, it did but none of that was relevant to Wakanda or the Dora Milaje.
So when T’Challa walks in looking admittedly quite terrifying he sits up a little, hoping that at least he would consider Tony’s innocence. “You have seen the pictures?” T’Challa asks and Tony nods, jaw clenching a bit at the memories he would rather not have. “How long would it have taken you to create the kind of bomb used in the explosion?” he asks.
“Depends. If it was already made all I’d have to do is place it in the right location, but I don’t know how I’d get past the Dora Milaje. They’re pretty fucking diligent. If I already had the materials it’d take me at least a couple hours to put everything together and then however long it’d take to put the bomb in place. If I had to get the materials to make it it’d take at least a day, probably more so I didn’t want to look suspicious.” He debates on adding more for a moment, mostly that he didn’t do this, but the look on T’Challa’s face suggested he didn’t want to hear it and Tony didn’t blame him.
T’Challa nods, “and do you know when the bomb went off? What time?” T’Challa clarifies.
Tony thinks for a moment and finally shrugs, “I don’t know, not long after we got out of the forest. I barely had time to lay down before I heard the explosion and ended up dragged out of my room.” They worked way faster than any police system Tony was used to.
“Do you even know where my father’s room is?” T’Challa asks.
“No fucking clue. Houses are houses, outside of tracking down the library I didn’t feel the need to look around. I mean I grew up in a mansion, no offense but this isn’t exactly that much more impressive. Outside is far more impressive. And scary, you guys have some very messed up spiders.” He could do without ever running into those creepy tree spiders ever again unless he was with Rhodey because then it would be almost worth it just to see him run screaming.
“America has Brock Rumlow so do not complain about the spiders. At least the spiders can be exterminated. You are a genius- why all but write your name in my father’s assassination?” T’Challa asks.
“Fair point on Rumlow, but technically he can be exterminated if you have no qualms with murder. I didn’t kill your father, though, and if I did I wouldn’t have used an explosion. My father was killed in an explosion- why would I ever recreate that for someone else? Not to mention the basic stupidity of the previous weapons expert using a bomb to kill someone.” It was also far too dramatic for his tastes, which was saying something considering he happened to be a very dramatic person. However a simple gun shot would do and it wouldn’t leave such a mess and it was far more predictable.
T’Challa examines him for a long moment before he seems to let his guard down some. “I do not think you are guilty because the timeline does not match and because I know you at least well enough that you do not bother putting much thought into things that do not interest you. That means I know you have no interest in Wakandan politics outside of reading about the subject. You would not have done this if for no other reason than having no motivation to care to kill the King.”
He wasn’t wrong. Tony had a bad habit of ignoring things he thought were useless either to him or in general and the King of Wakanda definitely fell into the things about Wakanda that he deemed useless to him. T’Chaka seemed like a decent enough man who obviously cared about his children even if he had an odd way of showing it at least to T’Challa, but that was pretty much all Tony knew about him because he didn’t care to learn more. The information was useless to him because he hadn’t considered himself much of a major player in the competition for T’Challa’s affections even if he maybe ignored that he was a clear favorite. Whoops.
“Thank you. But that does beg the question of why, exactly, someone went out of their way to make it look like I did this. I mean the explosion pattern is pretty unique to weapons I’ve made even if they’re a little off.” The burn patterns were too wide, and the temperature of the explosion would have run hotter than any similar bombs that he’s designed given the scorch patterns. Still, the bomb was far too similar to his designs to ignore and that meant someone was framing him for assassinating a King in a foreign country. But why? Sure he had plenty of enemies, probably even a few that were currently in the country, but none that he thought disliked him enough to frame him for murder.
“It is an easy way to remove you from the competition for my affections, plus it seems that no one else here likes you outside of Natasha. They find you arrogant and full of yourself,” T’Challa says.
“Seems like an extreme method of taking out the competition. If they wanted to do that they could have showed you videos of me five years ago. Seriously, eighteen year old me was a twat.” Thankfully he grew out of most of the bad habits that his younger self had, which really only made him wonder how embarrassed he’d be of himself in five years. He’d probably be pretty embarrassed that he entered a competition to marry an omega without ever considering that it might end in marriage only to get framed for assassinating the King. He was a little embarrassed of that now, honestly.
“I have already seen you’re embarrassing teen phases- I also like research. You make a point about the methodology being extreme though, but why else would anyone want my father dead and why else frame you specifically?” T’Challa asks. Tony opens his mouth to ask whether or not he’s considered that someone from Wakanda was behind this but thinks better of it. The accusation would probably only get him a defensive comment about his country’s politics not supporting that. T’Challa would consider it on his own time.
“Maybe someone just hates me enough to try and kill me off via Wakandan laws,” Tony suggests. That seemed pretty reasonable, everyone knew Wakanda wasn’t fond of foreigners, it was a logical conclusion that they wouldn’t be super happy if a foreigner killed their King- maybe even enough to kill off said foreigner.
“Do you think anyone here hates you that much?” T’Challa asks.
Tony shrugs, “the hell if I know.”
*
T’Challa sighs as Shuri goes on another rant about Tony. “Enough,” he says eventually, surprised when Shuri immediately stops talking. It was jarring to him, the sudden power that he has been saddled with. Okoye questioned him too, but when he told her that he knew what he was doing she stopped talking immediately and accepted it when she would not have before.
He resents that people listen to him now because it took his father’s assassination to earn that respect. And even then it was backhanded. He is King; people are supposed to listen and they heard him out out of respect for the position, not respect for him. He is not certain that he would ever gain respect as a person because, as much as he did not want to admit it, cultural assumptions around omegas still made him out to be lesser.
“I am not a fool, Tony is with the rest of the alphas in their makeshift prison, not roaming free. I have not completely eliminated the possibility that he may be involved, but the evidence does not add up,” he says.
“What are you talking about?” Shuri snaps, “all the evidence matches up. That is why he is guilty! You are just clouded by personal opinions!”
“And you are not?” he snaps, “do not insult me by making a subtle claim that you are more objective. Our father was just assassinated, as if you are more objective than I am! Neither one of us would ever be able to view this without feeling so do not try and act as if my feelings interfere with how I am examining the evidence here as if you have no personal investment. And the evidence does not add up- I was with Tony before the explosion went off and it would have taken too long for him to have placed the bomb and get back to his room. Yes, it is entirely possible that he could still be involved but I do not think that he is. We are missing something.” There is some piece of evidence that was not there- the motivation behind his father’s assassination is as unclear as who committed the crime. Without at least a motivation to work with it would be difficult to find the perpetrator.
Shuri frowns, “that bomb went off in the middle of the night. What were you doing with Tony in the middle of the night?” she asks, nearly accuses.
“That is none of your business. What I do with my free time is not something that is up for discussion simply because you do not like the possibility that I would do something you do not agree with. The point here is that I know for certain where Tony was and when- and knowing that means that I know it would have been impossible for him to have killed our father unless he had an accomplice. In which case we need to figure out why two people would want our father dead.” He did not want to deal with this at all but unfortunately he did not get a choice.
“Resources, T’Challa. Obviously,” Shuri says.
“Then why not target our entire family? Why only kill the King when there was equal opportunity to kill you and myself as well? That would make the country far more chaotic and therefore easier to conquer if that were the case. We are missing something,” he repeats. He would like to ask Tony more questions but he could not involve a suspect in his own line of questioning, not until he had concrete evidence that Tony was not involved. As it was he has already said too much. He sighs and leans back in his chair, looking over to Shuri to see if she had something more to add. She looks away and he shakes his head, “if you have nothing more to add than go,” he says.