Gold Standard

“They think you did what?” Pepper asks, her voice just a bit grainy over the video call as her eyes growing wide. Personally Tony was just happy that he got his tech back even if he was certain it was bugged. He couldn’t prove it but he had a feeling- the Dora Milaje were not as convinced of his innocence as T’Challa.

“Killed the king. They think I killed the king. Be honest, you knew something would go wrong with my name on it here,” Tony says. She gave him the side eye for a solid week before he went but he assured her that he was a terrible marriage candidate and he’d be sent back quickly.

“Did you? Kill the king?” Pepper asks.

“Excuse you, no, I did not kill the damn king! I like to hope you have more faith in me than that,” he mumbles. Come on, why would he kill the king of Wakanda? What the hell would he even stand to gain from that aside from either a swift death or spending the rest of his life in some Wakandan hellhole? They were nice to their own population prison-wise- T’Challa had explained that they literally could not afford a high proportion of their population in prison given how dependent they were on only their own population to run things. High incarceration rates meant jobs going undone so prison was more reform than anything, at least if you weren’t a foreigner. Then they didn’t give a damn about you and from what Tony read he would have been stuck in something like a detention center to rot until he died. Not his cup of tea, he preferred T.V in his residences at least.

“Well you wouldn’t have done it on purpose, but you do have a weird habit of getting into some really… explosive situations. Sometimes literally. But why do they think you killed the king?” she asks.

“That’s what I need your help with actually. T’Challa is pretty convinced I’ve been framed and I damn well know I’ve been framed. But I have no idea who framed me or how they could have even pulled this off considering how suspicious literally everyone here is. Seriously, they barely let jujubes into the country let alone murderers.”

“Then someone in the country was in on it,” Pepper says, ever so logical.

“Tell them that. I can guarantee it will go over horribly however obvious that seems to me. I’ve left that for T’Challa to figure out on his own, or the Dora Milaje, whichever figures it out first. Point is I need you to do some sleuthing so I can figure out what the hell is going on here, and JARVIS too. Between the two of you you can cover all the usual suspects that crop up when things go wrong in my life.”

Pepper nods and starts jotting down notes as he tells her what’s going on while they go over the usual list of names. Tony decides to cover Hammer just to make sure that twit didn’t suddenly gain a scrap of intelligence. Pepper decides to cover Vankov and a cursory check of Obi given that she was in the same building as him and checking his computer would be easy. Obi would be the easiest elimination next to Hammer. Tony still had his money on Vankov.

When he tells Rhodey what’s going on he gets the typical ‘are you kidding me’ look. “What? I didn’t so it,” Tony says almost defensively. He needed new friends considering they all thought he’d kill the damn king of Wakanda.

“I know you didn’t do it, but of course you managed to get yourself framed,” Rhodey says.

“Uh, excuse you, I have nothing to do with me getting framed thank you. So I did not ‘get myself framed’ I just got framed and I need a favor. Pepper’s looking into the usual suspects and JARVIS is doing his own thing but do you mind looking into some of the more international stuff?” Rhodey knew his way around systems that Pepper was more unfamiliar with and even if he didn’t he happened to also be a genius engineer so he could figure out any problems a lot faster than Pepper. “JARVIS can help you too,” he adds because JARVIS was a faster hacker than Rhodey would be. He was almost faster than Tony but Tony knew tricks that JARVIS didn’t.

Rhodey sighs, “how do you always get into these messes?” Rhodey asks.

“Is that a yes?” Tony asks, grinning.

“Yeah that’s a yes. I sort of already started looking into things when I hadn’t heard from you for awhile and Wakanda shied away from the media so I’ll continue following up on that stuff I guess. JARVIS can go all the grunt work because I don’t feel like it,” Rhodey says.

“See this is why he doesn’t like working with you,” Tony tells him, clicking his tongue in disapproval.

“He’s an AI, he can’t like or dislike anything,” Rhodey points out.

“Reason number two on why he doesn’t like working with you, you totally ignore his awesome personality,” Tony says, nose in the air.

“It’s be a lot more awesome if he wasn’t such an ass when he felt like it. Did you program him to be a pain in the ass?” Rhodey asks.

“Only to people he doesn’t like. And people I don’t like. He’s mean to Hammer and that makes me happy.” Once JARVIS hacked into Hammer’s systems and left design notes on everything he was trying to make and sent him a ‘you tried’ card when his designs still failed to live up to Tony’s. This was why he loved his AI so much, JARVIS knew what was up and he never forgot Pepper’s birthday no matter how many times Tony did and he even remembered to send presents. Or to tell Pepper to but herself a present.

“You should reprogram your AI to like me because I’m your best friend and I think I deserve some AI love,” Rhodey says, “tell him I found you after you were missing for three months. He didn’t do that because he is not as awesome as me.”

Tony snorts, shaking his head at the familiar rivalry between Rhodey and JARVIS as to who was the better friend. “JARVIS couldn’t leave the house to search for me in his defense, plus he did check a bunch of cameras and he kept Obi from snooping in my lab,” he points out.

“I saved your life and you’re telling me I should think JARVIS keeping your doors locked is impressive. Oh no, no, JARVIS does not get any credit for sitting on his metaphorical ass when I busted my own behind to find you in the middle of a damn desert. You know what there was to go off of? Sand, some sand to the left, a little sand to the right, and some more goddamn sand but I still found you. JARVIS didn’t do that,” Rhodey says indignantly.

“You don’t order me pizza when I don’t feel like dealing with people,” Tony counters.

“I saved your life, if it wasn’t for me JARVIS wouldn’t be able to order your ungrateful ass pizza. I see how it is, you only like JARVIS more because you made him,” Rhodey says.

“Don’t be absurd, that’d make him kind of like my kid and I hate those. Plus you did save my life that one time even though getting permission to continue your search for me probably wouldn’t have been easy,” he says. He didn’t know how Rhodey managed given that he had been gone for three months when Rhodey happened to be flying around in the area. The closest base would have put him on the opposite side of the explosion but Rhodey claimed that he just knew and against their better judgment Rhodey’s men listened to him. Turned out he was right so they couldn’t really do much about it. He’s always had good senses like that, even if everyone around him tried to claim his gut feelings were wimpy omega feelings. No one dismissed Tony’s gut feelings like that so he learned to listen to Rhodey. It helped that he was rarely wrong.

“It wasn’t easy but it was worth it, you’re still alive and well because I knew you wouldn’t be easy to kill. You’re like a cockroach, you can survive anything,” Rhodey jokes. Tony knows him well enough that the joke is more for his benefit than Rhodey’s. Humor was the easiest way to deal with his problems and Rhodey learned a long time ago that trying to force him out of that only led to more jokes. So he worked with it instead, cracking jokes so Tony wouldn’t run off at the first sign of emotion. Like when he found Tony and asked how the ‘funvee’ was given that he had tried, and failed, to keep Tony in line in Afghanistan. Didn’t help that Howard encouraged him and it was probably the only encouragement Tony ever got from the man. Then the disaster of revamping SI, alcoholism, and Vankov hit all at once and he somehow made it out the other side.

“Shit you’re right, I am like a cockroach. Anyways, the international stuff for this whole ‘who framed Tony for killing the king’, what have you got so far?”

*

T’Challa goes over the video footage he got from Tony’s returned tech but the play back is strange. He did not much like invading Tony’s privacy but he did run into Tony earlier and he seemed to already know he was being watched, or at least he assumed he was. This was not something he agreed to- Tony is a tech genius, if he truly wanted to avoid being caught for murder bugging his technology would do nothing. He would figure out a way around the bugs because he is more than intelligent enough to do so. Instead T’Challa gets to watch an hour of him dancing around to some horrible music, a couple video calls, and he notes a few texts exchanged with his business partner who seems strangely unconcerned about Tony. Tony’s responses seem to indicate that the cool relationship between the two is a norm though so he files the information away but notes that it is less relevant.

The first video call is what gets his attention though. He watches everything all the way through and assumes that Tony must have been putting on a show with dancing that bad, he decides that he rather likes Rhodey, and that Pepper and Tony have an odd relationship. The second video does not appear to be tampered with, and the dancing is either edited to be far more awful than it originally was or it was left alone, but the first video has an odd spot. In an attempt to figure out what was throwing him off he rewatches the video to find inconsistencies. After he reviews the video twice he concludes that only one part seems to be tampered with but the content before and after the deleted section do not indicate that Tony would have said anything incriminating for him to delete. And then there was the question of how though T’Challa was certainly sure he was capable of altering the information. But why make it so sloppy? Even Tony’s worst work was more put together than this.

“That’s what I need your help with actually. T’Challa is pretty convinced I’ve been framed and I damn well know I’ve been framed. But I have no idea who framed me or how they could have even pulled this off considering how suspicious literally everyone here is. Seriously, they barely let jujubes into the country let alone murderers. Point is I need you to do some sleuthing so I can figure out what the hell is going on here, and JARVIS too. Between the two of you you can cover all the usual suspects that crop up when things go wrong in my life.”

Halfway through the statement the audio stutters a little and Tony’s position is altered in the video. He starts the statement leaning back and suddenly ends up leaning forward and three inches to the left without ever actually moving from his original position. One second he is sitting back, the next he is sitting forward and to the left. It does not take him long to locate the missing piece of video but when he hears the missing chunk he frowns.

“That’s what I need your help with actually. T’Challa is pretty convinced I’ve been framed and I damn well know I’ve been framed. But I have no idea who framed me or how they could have even pulled this off considering how suspicious literally everyone here is. Seriously, they barely let jujubes into the country let alone murderers.”

“Then someone in the country was in on it.”

“Tell them that. I can guarantee it will go over horribly however obvious that seems to me. I’ve left that for T’Challa to figure out on his own, or the Dora Milaje, whichever figures it out first...”

So both Pepper and Tony have come to the conclusion that someone else here was in on the death of the king but the way Tony phrased his words suggested that he was not keeping the information from them exactly, he simply did not want to rock the boat so-to-speak. And he assumes that T’Challa and the Dora Milaje will come to the same conclusion, which means he does not have much to hide, he is simply waiting for himself and his guards to catch up. If this is the case, and it likely was, than why delete the video?

He calls Okoye in to see what she thinks because she is absolutely trustworthy. They have known each other a long time and he knows that Okoye is more than loyal, even if she does have a problem with omegas and is unwilling to admit it to him.

“There is no way that Stark deleted anything,” she tells him with obvious certainty.

“It would not do well to underestimate him, Okoye, the man is a genius and he has survived a lot,” T’Challa points out. That was part of the reason he was not completely closed to Tony being more involved than he was admitting to. If anyone could have pulled off a plan so smoothly it would be someone like him.

“I am not underestimating him. He is extremely impressive in his ability to create and alter technology but he is not familiar with our systems. It would have taken him time to learn how to break in and I watched both of these calls. There is no way he would have been able to delete that material in the time I left and the time that you watched his previous activity,” she tells him.

“You are certain?” he asks again. He knows she is certain but he wanted to be sure there was absolutely no miscommunication here lest she or someone else try and tell him that his omega brain could not handle basic facts and communication.

“Yes I am certain, is there a point to this?” she asks in an irritated tone.

“There is. If you are certain that he did not tamper with the video and I know you did not tamper with the video than he and his redheaded companion are right. Someone from inside he country must have had something to do with the death of my father. Why else would something so innocuous have been altered? And not very well might I add, almost as if someone was rushing to get the job done.” The problem with that was that there were not very many Dora Milaje that would be so sloppy and they were the only ones who had access to this room or even knew that this room existed…

“Or you deleted it,” Okoye says and T’Challa’s head snaps up.

“Excuse me?” he asks sharply, “I hardly see how I would have motivation to erase evidence only to bring the erased evidence directly to you so I could blame someone else for it. That is convoluted and serves no purpose.”

“You have liked Tony since the beginning, I understand that-”

“Oh do not insult me with this! Of course I like Tony, but I love my father and I would never insult his memory by ignoring or covering evidence that pointed to who killed him! Since when does Wakanda ignore emotions at all hmm? We are all very connected; we consider emotion near all of the time so why does my being emotionally invested become a problem for you? And are you not emotionally invested in the death of your king? This is Wakanda, not America; we do not think that objectivity does not involve emotions unless, of course, it is an omega speaking their piece. I have never dropped the possibility that Tony may be involved in all of this and I do not appreciate you’re subtle insinuation that my omega brain could not possibly set aside my own investment in Tony,” he snaps. More than that Tony was invested in him too, which he has been using to his advantage not that anyone else even knew about that. Or considered it honestly.

“That is not what I meant, I did not even bring up your status!” Okoye protests.

“You did not need to because you have never once made this assumption of my father and you have never once told him to stop being emotionally invested in the cases he has been involved in. Unless you plan on travelling back in time and telling him to not be emotionally invested in who killed his first and second wife than I would suggest you do not insult me by telling me I should suddenly stop feeling. That is how mistakes are made.” He has seen how ignoring emotions caused too many problems too many times to count. B’Tumba ignored his jealousy and subtle assumptions that T’Challa should not be naturally talented and intelligent because he is an omega and it destroyed their relationship. Then he went and joined an outlier Wakandan political party dedicated to returning the country back to what it used to be. Which was nothing good really- Wakanda has a rather harsh history with several different groups and T’Challa for one was happy that they were past that now.

Point being that emotions and considering them was necessary. Yes, he was obviously invested in Tony and he did not want him to be guilty but that did not mean he got to ignore evidence of tampering on his part if it were to show up. Which was why he called Okoye in to confirm his own thoughts and feelings- he knew he was biased and he wanted to make sure that he was seeing things clearly. Unfortunately all that got him was assumptions about his omega status. Okoye, for her part, looks upset with herself and so she should. “I am going to talk to Tony,” he tells her and with that he leaves.

*

When Tony opens the door he looks shaken and pale, “you found something,” T’Challa says immediately, not realizing that Tony might not actually know that his technology was bugged.

“Nothing to do with T’Chaka but yes, I did find something,” Tony says and he steps back. He appears to be holding himself together well but T’Challa can see his hands shaking slightly.

“And what was it? You do not look well,” T’Challa says, frowning. Tony was not the shakable type in his experience. He did not look even remotely as shaken when he was being interrogated by the Dora Milage.

Tony gently sits down on his bed and Jujube walks over to him, gently pressing her head to his arm because she knew he was upset. Lovely little feline, she was always there when someone needed it. “I uh… I asked Pepper to look into- oh whatever, you probably already know about all of that. I’m pretty sure my shit is bugged which is honestly some 1984 shit but whatever. Anyways, Pepper snooped in Obi’s computer ad she found this,” Tony says and he hands over a USB stick with what T’Challa assumed was the information the redhead found. He takes the USB from Tony’s grasp and plugs it into Tony’s computer. It was surprisingly well made by Wakandan standards. Technology was an area T’Challa noticed that they were rather ahead in compared to the rest of the world minus Tony, who was not far off from what they had.

He plays the video on the USB and finds a young Tony sitting in a chair looking delirious and confused as people on screen start speaking. “What are they saying?” he asks Tony. He did not understand the language that they were speaking.

“They’re saying that Obadiah didn’t tell them that they were supposed to kill me and my father and that they’re going to keep me because I’m worth more than his price tag,” Tony says in a low voice. T’Challa frowns because it has been some time since this video was shot, he could see the difference between the Tony in the video and the one right in front of him.

“Why did he not just kill you when you got back to America? He has had time,” T’Challa points out. Tony gives him an unimpressed look, “sorry,” he adds.

“Don’t know why he didn’t kill me. Maybe because he realized after the initial stock drop that my ideas were actually good and they’d make more money than weapons so he figured he’d weasel more out of me or something. I… he was like a second father to me,” Tony murmurs. T’Challa wants to say that he appeared to be exactly like Tony’s father given how little he cared but that is insensitive so instead he sits beside Tony and gently places his hand on Tony’s knee.

“Sorry,” he says, “and yes we are watching you but I suspected that you would know right away. And for the record I did not agree with the idea but it was an easy way to prove your innocence. Plus who could resist watching that bad dancing,” he jokes.

Tony snorts a little, “my dancing is not that bad.”

“Not compared to your music. What atrocious noise,” he says, shaking his head. Ugh.

“I am so offended. You came here, watched my surrogate father’s plans to murder me and my actual father via terrorists and then you insult my music? You should go spy on Nat if you want good dancing,” Tony says, gently bumping into him. Jujube, who has curled herself into Tony’s side, is annoyed by the movement and lets him know with a loud meow.

“It is not my fault you lack taste in music. But… is it possible that perhaps your partner was trying to kill you again and somehow… missed?” he asks. It seemed likely enough given that the man went out of his way to kill Tony in such an elaborate way before.

“Not likely. Well, likely, just not that he’d miss. I don’t know if he had anything to do with this but… but I guess it’s possible,” Tony says. He leans into T’Challa more and he takes some small comfort that Tony is at least comfortable enough with him to do this. It was not like he had anyone to lean on even though he needed it, but he was more than happy to help Tony for the time being. Even if it irked him some to have to deal with someone else’s dead father.

“Your… Pepper, is she safe?” he asks. If she was the one who gathered this information it stood to reason that she would be in danger if Obadiah found out that she knew about his attempt to assassinate Tony.

“Pep is fine. She’s on her way to Italy to a house I have there that should be more than enough to keep her safe. JARVIS will throw Obi off for awhile playing stupid until Rhodey can figure something out. God, why is it that disaster follows me around? I’d call it karma if it didn’t keep trying to kill everyone but me,” Tony mumbles. T’Challa wonders if he forgot about the three months of torture, dead father, betrayal from his surrogate father, and whatever other trauma he has suffered. It seemed to him that Tony has paid for his crimes and then some given some of the things he knew of Tony’s past.

“We do not believe in karma here. Sometimes things happen and it is no one’s fault and sometimes the things that happen are entirely a construction of a few individuals. But karma, getting what you give to the world, that cannot possibly exist in a world in which so many innocent people suffer. So we do not believe in it,” he says. He has done nothing to deserve his father’s death, his father did nothing to deserve his own death, but those that were responsible will certainly suffer for their actions against the King.