Chapter 13
Tony looks around his yard, horrified. “T’Challa, how did you get this many cats here?” he asks, looking at all the cats currently surrounding his Malibu house.
“I planted cat nip,” he says, petting the several cats that have crawled into his lap, looking pleased. It was a nice change to his sluggishness but Tony knew what it was like to suddenly not have a goal after a parent died. It was weird because when Howard died he barely even felt it, but after he got out of those caves oh boy… He thought he outran the grieving process and instead he ended up staving it off for a time and by the time he realized he hadn’t dealt with Howard’s death at all he was an alcoholic. At least T’Challa’s overindulgence was in cats instead of substance abuse and Jujube could use a friend. This many friends, though… not so much.
“T’Challa we can’t keep all these cats, this is an illegal amount of cats,” Tony says. There had to be at least thirty cats in his yard, probably more.
“An illegal amount of cats is the perfect amount of cats,” T’Challa says, grinning at the cats.
“An illegal amount of cats means fees,” Tony says.
“We are both rich, and besides, do you really think someone will look the King of Wakanda dead in the and tell him to get rid of the cats? I doubt it,” he says. Tony sighs and accepts that he just acquired an uncomfortable amount of pets.
*
Pepper and T’Challa get along well, which Tony was more than a little grateful for because if they hadn’t gotten along he would have had no clue what to do. Pepper had good people sense, if she didn’t like T’Challa something had to be wrong with him. She hadn’t liked Obi and she was right about him. But they got along well, and they both had an inexplicable fondness for tea that Tony didn’t understand. Though in their defense he basically lived off coffee.
“You two get along well,” Pepper tells him as they pour over more goddamn paperwork from when Tony was away. They had barely even started on all the crap from Obi too, though Pepper hired an assistant for that. She was supposed to meet them later or something like that, Tony hadn’t been paying attention. He only needed to know what his assistant was doing.
“I should hope so, we’re engaged. I am happy with him though; we understand a lot of things about each other that most others don’t. And he smells really good,” Tony says, grinning dopily at the memory of T’Challa’s scent.
Pepper shakes her head, “you alphas, always thinking with your noses,” she says.
“Do not. We have lots of other things in common too, I’m just saying, he smells amazing. Its an objective fact,” Tony says in his own defense.
“Next time I see him I’m asking him how many IQ points you lose when you scent him,” Pepper says, laughing when Tony makes an offended noise. He didn’t lose any IQ points! That stupid-alphas-can’t-think-past-their-noses thing was a total myth; they can and did think beyond their noses thanks. Tony did it all the time not that he had any choice, his house smelled entirely of his and T’Challa’s scents now, which, awesome. It was nice to have him around and he could use the break from his own country, even if he was still pretty involved in the proceedings of his father’s murder case at least.
Shuri called somewhat often concerning various things that needed his opinion or input but it seemed to be less stressful than actively being in the country doing those things so Tony didn’t say anything. Not that it would have mattered to T’Challa anyways, if this was the way he wanted to deal with his grieving period this was the way he’d damn well do it. Unsurprisingly T’Challa caught flack in America too as an omega, but spending time with Tony has upped his sass game and Tony, for one, was thrilled with this. He didn’t feel much threatened by the fact that T’Challa was a person with distinct personality traits that he insisted on keeping whether Tony liked them or not. Personally he found that attractive actually and he had no clue why any alpha would want a stereotypical omega, not that he believed someone that wimpy and weak existed outside of weird fetish heat porn. What a wasted porn category.
“Do you think if we just killed Obi we wouldn’t have to deal with the paperwork?” Tony asks Pepper eventually. He wanted to go home, hang out with T’Challa and watch more bad movies that annoyed T’Challa. They shared absolutely no taste in movies or television- T’Challa hated mindless action and if Tony ever had to watch another horror film ever again he’d do something really embarrassing that he wouldn’t even want to witness himself let alone have T’Challa witness. But Mean Girls had been hilarious if for no other reason than T’Challa being offended at the depiction of Africa. And T’Challa’s love of mysteries, ugh, Tony did not see the appeal at all but T’Challa liked trying to figure things out before the characters. His discovery of American cop dramas had been a very disappointing day for Tony but he watched Criminal Minds with him anyways, but he wasn’t ever telling T’Challa about Sherlock Holmes. Especially not those weird adaptions with that one guy who looked kind of like him and Jude Law.
“Pretty sure murder would mean more paperwork, just not for us,” Pepper says.
“Great, lets kill him,” Tony says excitedly. He had a fiancé to get home to.
“Kill who now?” a familiar voice asks.
Tony turns around and frowns, “Natasha?” he asks, surprised to see the woman here, in SI.
“Natalie,” she corrects with a pleasant smile, “Natalie Rushman. I’m sure we’ll get along just fine,” she says, pleasant smile still on her face.
Tony turns back to Pepper, “just so you know she’s actually a Russian princess named Natasha but she’s legit.” She had run all those psych tests and whatever else T’Challa wanted on the Dora Milaje after all. Boy were they pissed about that but that was what happened when you a couple of you went rouge and killed the king, or in the case of the few that were involved and didn’t know about that they just let the catalyst to the king’s murder.
Zemo was probably not having fun in that Wakandan detention center that T’Challa didn’t say much about. Tony found that telling considering he was horrified with the American prison system- apparently Wakanda’s system looked much more like Scandinavian prison systems. Tony figured detention centers in Wakanda did not function the same way. He would have felt bad with the remaining Dora Milaje that Natasha sniffed out and busted for being involved in either alternative political parties looking to over throw the king, or the murder of the last king but you know, murder. He liked T’Challa just where he was, thanks, and he wasn’t looking forward to when their relationship went more long distance.
“Oh god Tony, please work on believable lies. No one would ever believe that,” Pepper tells him, shaking her head.
“But… it’s… that true!” Tony protests as Natasha rounds the table and takes a seat beside Pepper, picking up some random folder to set to work. Pepper ignores him and Natasha just grins, knowing that Pepper was never going to believe him. He sighs and accepts his fate.
*
Tony and T’Challa sit curled on the couch with Jujube stretched out across them. The other cats with the exception of the very cute white one Tony found lurking by the doorway a couple days ago were outside. And no one has said anything about the cats, though he lived on a cliff to be fair. It wasn’t like they were disrupting anyone and they were mostly high on that cat nip all the time. And they were a nice distraction for T’Challa when he was feeling bad or upset about something, especially his father’s death.
“Thank you,” T’Challa murmurs into Tony’s hair.
“I don’t know what you’re thanking me for but Natasha illegally immigrated into America and now she’s Pepper’s assistant and Pepper didn’t believe me when I told her she was actually a Russian princess and her name is Natalia now. Also did she finish examining the Dora Milaje or is that still on going? I need to know because I might hire her to kill Obi so I have less paperwork to deal with,” Tony says. She could probably do it.
“I was thanking you for being so gracious about my grieving. Most would not be so kind, I know this because my country was not impressed when I took time that I was entitled to- which I pointed out of course. And no, technically Natasha is not done with the Dora Milaje, I had her look over some new recruits seems how I cannot trust my own staff. I will go over both her reports and Okoye’s usual reports on the new recruits to make sure that I am not accidentally hiring someone who is plotting my death. I cannot believe this is even necessary,” he mumbles. “But back to you, do not hire Natasha to kill off your previous business partner because you do not want paperwork,” T’Challa says in a disapproving tone.
Huh, he hadn’t known T’Challa was having Natasha go over the newbies too, he figured that was all Okoye but he supposed she hadn’t noticed that there were traitors working with her so T’Challa had lost faith. To be fair Tony noticed that Okoye lost just enough faith to be just as suspicious of the Dora Milaje as she was of foreigners, which was probably for the best in Tony’s absolutely biased opinion. “No need to thank me for allowing you to grieve, jeeze. That’s normal stuff. We do have to get rid of some of those cats though, there are more and the keep coming because of the damn cat nip. They must be telling their cat friends about it. But back to Obi- come on, he tried to kill me twice, killed my father, sold weapons to terrorists, and left me with a bunch of paperwork and lawsuits. I only want him just a tiny bit murdered, it’s hardly a loss given how crappy a person he is,” Tony says in his defense.
“The cats stay, they are cute and they are homeless, we cannot just abandon them. You are not killing your business partner just to get rid of paperwork though. Subjectively I do not care, he is a horrible man and the world would be better off, but objectively murder is not right. Even if it would leave you with less paperwork. Besides, Natasha is hardly an assassin,” T’Challa points out.
“I’m sure a six figure cheque would change that,” Tony says.
“You are not murdering your business partner, Tony,” T’Challa says in a firm tone.
Tony groans and presses his face into T’Challa’s chest, “but I don’t wanna do all that paperwork. And the lawsuits, he left me a mess and honestly the world isn’t losing much. Also you smell fantastic,” Tony says, inhaling deeply.
“Stop sniffing me while discussing murder, that is weird. And you smell nice too,” T’Challa says, pressing his nose into Tony’s hair. He’s a lot more subtle about his sniffing but Tony didn’t see the point in that so he huffs in T’Challa’s scent, earning a laugh. “Typical alpha, its always sniffing with you.”
“Okay that is not true, you just smell really good. It’s an objective fact,” Tony says. First Pepper, now T’Challa? Next Natasha was going to agree and then they’d have a real problem.
“You smell nice too but you do not see me huffing you like a drug, do you?” T’Challa says, raising an eyebrow.
“Maybe you should start, I’m cool with that,” Tony tells him, grinning.
“Of course you are,” T’Challa mumbles, “typical alpha.”