Chapter 12
T’Challa presses his face into Tony’s neck, half curled around the man given that he was taller. It was strange to T’Challa that Tony did not seem uncomfortable with that- in his own culture omegas were expected to be demure and size was part of that. Perhaps in America that was not a popular idea or maybe Tony simply did not care.
“Tell me about America,” he says, curious about what Tony thought of his country. T’Challa had his own thoughts about the country and its political history but he did not live there, he was sure Tony had plenty of thoughts on Wakanda too, but context mattered. It was difficult to have proper context when you were not exposed to the culture for a long period of time.
“Uh… god, I don’t know. We like guns and explosions and things that are really, really big for no other reason than their large size. Like Texas. For context Wakanda is barely larger than Texas,” Tony says and T’Challa frowns.
“What? That is huge. And I already gathered that your country likes guns and explosions. Explain the big things though, that does not make sense to me.” A lot of things about America, from what he has heard, did not make sense to him but the big things were new. Aside from America’s apparent ego he had no idea that things were… bigger in America.
“Yeah… used to be not so fond of gun laws but then I got attacked by terrorists and now think they’re necessary but that’s probably because of like… PTSD. Anyways. Yeah, so there’s this joke abut everything being bigger in Texas and- you know what, I have the perfect explanation for everything America give me a minute,” Tony says, slipping off the bed with no regards to where T’Challa’s falling onto the pillow to go grab something.
Two hours and one dreadful movie later T’Challa decides that America did not seem very pleasant. “So… America is cars and misogyny?” he asks, frowning as the credits roll on Tony’s laptop.
Tony considers this for a moment and shrugs, “basically. But the cars are cool and things explode and there are cool cars!” Tony says, acting as if this made the film less terrible.
“That was… the worst movie I have every seen,” T’Challa says honestly, shaking his head.
He does not anticipate Tony looking deeply offended, “excuse you? Who doesn’t like The Fast And The Furious? This is a great franchise, there are cool exploding cars T’Challa!” Tony waves his heads around like this demonstrated his point but T’Challa remains confused.
“People who have taste,” T’Challa says.
“Fine, you find me a better movie,” Tony sniffs, nose in the air. Little does he know T’Challa could pull out the worst movie in Wakandan history and it would be better than that garbage but he has a movie in mind. Most unfortunately for Tony he does not turn out to be a fan of the horror genre, but his loud shrieks were amusing until Okoye showed up.
*
Tony is trying- and failing- to beat Natasha in a game of poker when he hears the news. Well, more accurately he sees the news when a swarm of Dora Milaje all but run past the door to the library. He and Natasha get up to investigate only to have the door shut in their faces. “You guys are very untrustworthy, you know!” he yells at the shut door.
“To be fair they did think you killed the king,” Natasha says.
“But I didn’t kill the king and they proved that I was the actual target all along so I feel like I’ve earned a little bit of trust. Or at least some common courtesy,” he mumbles, glaring at the shut door.
“Pretty sure not slamming the door on your face was courtesy enough to them. Now get back here so I can win at cards,” Natasha says, sitting back down at the small table they were playing on. Tony reluctantly goes but he’s distracted so Natasha takes the win far easier than she would have if he hadn’t been distracted. Usually he counted cards but his mind kept wandering back to T’Challa and what he was dealing with right now. Tony assumes that he found the parties responsible for interfering with the investigation and letting that Polish- Slovakian- guy into the country.
That couldn’t be easy and Tony knew what it was like. There was that whole Obi fiasco and he had no idea how he didn’t see it coming. In hindsight it was pretty obvious now that he knew. “You’re distracted,” Natasha says and Tony blinks back into focus, shaking his head a little.
“Yeah, I guess,” he says agreeably. It wasn’t false, and he felt he had the right to be distracted given the circumstances. And god even knew when he would be let out of here and if he’d even be allowed anywhere near T’Challa.
“You know I’ve done a lot of research on you and you don’t seem like the touchy feely type,” Natasha says, head tilted to the side a little.
“I’m not.” Never has been either, Howard made sure that his ability to empathize was at a near zero early on. Truth be told he never has known how to express his emotions right and it never seemed to work out well for him. Exhibit A- his alcoholism.
“Maybe in the past but I don’t see much evidence for that now. You care about T’Challa, about what’s going on here- I don’t think you would have two years ago,” Natasha says. Tony snorts, Tony didn’t care about anything two years ago, himself included.
“Yeah well, I left a lot to be desired then, still do honestly. And yeah I care about T’Challa- I should, we’re fucking engaged. I don’t even know how that happened.” Typical Tony Stark shenanigans he guessed. Go to a country with no intention on doing much of anything except for exploring the history of tech and a dash of culture, end up marrying the king. God, that was so him.
“I’m not certain he knows how that happened either but you two are good together. You have a lot of chemistry and I think he does a good job balancing out… you. And you do a good job understanding him, I didn’t expect that,” Natasha says.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“I mean you’re an emotionally and socially stunted twit. I mean I love you but it’s true. I didn’t expect you to make such a full and… I don’t know, genuine contribution to his life.” Natasha shrugs and Tony is offended because ouch.
“Excuse you, I am a wonderful and fulfilling person fuck you very much. And it’s nice that you love me, but I don’t even like you,” he says. The comment is more to be a petty ass than anything because he knew what Natasha meant. He didn’t expect to make a contribution to T’Challa’s life either, certainly not a meaningful one.
Natasha throws the deck of cards at him, “scre you, Stark,” she says but she’s smiling, which is rare for the Russians so Tony figured it’s real. Either that or she was bearing her teeth at him and he was about to die.
*
T’Challa looked like death warmed over and Tony doesn’t know what to do aside from sit beside him and gently rub his back feeling like a tit on a log. “What happened?” he asks eventually. He isn’t sure if it’ll help at all but at this point he doubted he could make it worse.
“The plan was to kill you- to frighten my father back into keeping Wakanda separate from the world by proving that outsiders are dangerous and only bring destruction. Unfortunately others had… different ideas of what should happen. You know the rest, obviously. And I should have noticed, Nakia had been acting strange throughout this whole thing, it was obvious,” T’Challa says, shaking his head sharply.
“Noticing when people close to you are acting odd and plotting against you isn’t easy, T’Challa. take it from a guy who has worked with a man who plotted twice extensively to kill him and didn’t even notice. Sometimes we only see what we want to because it’s easier and sometimes that’s even okay, necessary even. So don’t beat yourself up because you wanted to believe that someone outside of what is by all means a tight knit country killed your father. You might want to seriously evaluate your security though,” Tony says, putting that last point out gently. It wasn’t something that he wanted to say but it was necessary in light of recent events.
“That is already being handled for what I consider obvious reasons. Okoye insists she has found all the traitors but she was blinded too. And I also want her evaluated. As it turns out Natasha is qualified for that job and I am learning that sometimes the perspective of an outsider can be useful. Thank you, by the way, for being so supportive. That was not called for,” he says.
Tony wraps an arm around T’Challa’s shoulders and pulls him close, “of course it was. No one else here looked willing to support you and god do I know what it’s like to go through something like this alone. I even had my father’s legacy to live up to too, except my father sucked so it was cool if I scrapped all of that. You aren’t so lucky- T’Chaka was a good man and you needed space to process what happened. I don’t mind being that space,” he says. God knows he could have used that himself. Pepper and Rhodey were busy people with their own lives, he couldn’t expect them to drop everything for him because he needed a lot more than either of them knew. And Obi… well he had been the one to try to kill Tony off so his lack of support was obvious.
For a long few moments they just sit there, T’Challa half curled into Tony’s side with Tony’s arm around him. This… wasn’t the sort of thing Tony ever would have seen for himself though to be fair dating the Prince-turned-King of Wakanda after the tragic death of the previous king sounded way to dramatic for real life. But it was nice though, and being T’Challa’s shoulder to lean on was even nicer much to his surprise. It never really occurred to him until now that no one seemed to trust him with their emotional problems and that was probably for good reason, but he liked that T’Challa did. He just had to make sure he didn’t go screwing it up.
“I am taking a leave of absence- the one I was entitled to take before this mess started. If… if you do not mind I would like to spend it with you. It would do me well to go somewhere else to process my grief,” T’Challa says.
“Of course. But just so you know America is as wonderfully obnoxious as The Fast And The Furious,” Tony warns, earning a long sigh from T’Challa. Tony grins though, because going home would be nice and he was more than happy to have T’Challa tag along. It would be a decent time to actually get to know each other almost free from distractions. T’Challa wasn’t going to have an easy time Tony knew, grief was difficult and it would be a lot harder without the distraction of investigating who killed the king. Tony has his own issues to attend to as well though, like everything with Obi, SI, and making sure Pepper was okay after her near dangerous run in with Obi. He figures that if T’Challa needed him he would say something and Tony would be more than happy to help him out when needed. Sometimes a distraction from his own problems would be nice too.