Chapter 111: Fallout
A/N: Tony dealing with the fallout of Shuri and JARVIS' actions. His baby boy is lucky he loves him.
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After everything he’d done to himself, he hadn’t thought it possible for him to get headaches at this point. And yet here Tony was, nursing a headache.
“… No, Crown Prince T’Challa. I will not remand Princess Shuri into your custody. She is an eighteen year old woman who made her own choice to leave Wakanda behind. Besides, even if I wanted to just treat her like some stolen artifact that can be handed back to you, JARVIS would just facilitate her escape again.”
On the screen in front of him, Prince T’Challa, soon to be King T’Challa, clenches his jaw, a muscle in his face ticking visibly as he restrains his anger and keeps his tone civil.
“Are you saying you do not have control over your own creation, Stark?”
Smirking slightly, Tony tilts his head to the side.
“Why don’t you go ask the Queen if she has control over hers and get back to me, yeah? JARVIS is his own person, just the same as Shuri. I trust them both to make their own decisions. J might not be human, but that doesn’t mean he’s under my control. As a point of fact, he’s completely free to do whatever the fuck he wants.”
T’Challa doesn’t look happy to hear that. From what Tony knows about the sole remaining Black Panther, the man isn’t a scientist, but he’s also not stupid. He’s been briefed on JARVIS’ capabilities by the Wakandan Design Group, and knows first hand how easily the AI could stymy Wakanda’s efforts, but in the last several years and in the last week.
Yes, it had been only a week since Erik Killmonger had killed King T’Chaka, given the order for Prince T’Challa to be assassinated, and tried to capture Princess Shuri and Queen Ramonda as well as the entirety of Wakanda before T’Challa could return. In that week, T’Challa had been a busy little bee.
He wasn’t King just yet, mostly because such rituals took time in any monarchy and at this point it didn’t have to be rushed. Not when T’Challa was pretty much the only person left in the Golden Tribe who could take the throne. King dead, fellow Prince a traitor and also dead, and Princess absconded to parts unknown.
Rather than force through a coronation that could honestly take place in a few weeks rather than a few days, T’Challa had done the smart thing and focused on getting his house in order and dealing with the surviving traitors who had sided with Erik. Tony was honestly a little impressed.
He was less impressed by T’Challa turning the entirety of the War Dogs, Wakanda’s central intelligence service towards trying to hunt down and recover Shuri post-haste. The only reason they were talking right now and Wakanda wasn’t reduced to a smoking crater beneath their fancy camo shield with the rest of the world none the wiser was that T’Challa’s orders had been very specific.
The Crown Prince had wisely told his people not to do anything that might set Tony off. They were to try and find Shuri and bring her home, but they were not allowed to actively attack Stark properties or start a war with Tony and his people that they couldn’t win.
That hadn’t stopped from still trying of course, and JARVIS had dealt with those War Dogs who hadn’t followed T’Challa’s orders far more brutally than he had the ones who were just trying to snoop around without causing damage. But either way, JARVIS had dealt with all of them one way or another.
Which was why a week after Erik’s attempted coup, T’Challa was forced to resort to calling Tony for this little civil chat, seeing as much of his War Dog Network was in shambles at this point, with Wakanda blinder to the rest of the world’s dealings then they’d been in centuries. The lucky operatives had been dropped back inside Wakanda’s borders through portals. The ones who’d pushed the envelope… well, such was the price of spy work.
“Stark. I am willing to forgive much for the sake of peace between us. I am willing to forgive the theft of our Vibranium when you apprehended Klaue.”
All of that Vibranium was back in Wakandan hands anyways. They were just too afraid to do anything but quarantine Shuri’s secret laboratory, afraid that any or all of the Vibranium Nanites left behind there might have JARVIS lurking inside them.
“I am willing to forgive your AI’s long-term infiltration of our country as well, so long as it does not happen again and he has truly left Wakanda’s soil and digital spaces behind.”
Meanwhile, they were still scrubbing their systems, trying to find and remove any trace of the AI from Wakanda itself. Not that they were having much luck.
“But you cannot for a moment believe that I will leave my younger sister in your hands. I have been spying on you for years, Stark. I know what sort of man you are.”
Wow. T’Challa was really going there, wasn’t he. Tony sighs and leans back in his chair.
“Harsh, Prince T’Challa. Very harsh.”
T’Challa raises an eyebrow, as if to ask if Tony is really going to try and deny the accusation. Rather than attempt to defend himself, Tony goes with pure honesty.
“I have had one conversation with your sister so far, and it was with two point six billion miles between us.”
That gets the other man’s attention.
“Excuse me?”
Tony shrugs, not seeing any reason to hold back this information. After all, it’s out of date anyways.
“When JARVIS opened that portal into Shuri’s lab to let Friday through so she could save your sister’s life, he did so from the Kuiper Belt. Our Solar System’s greater asteroid belt, the one furthest from Earth. Fortunately for Shuri’s sake, the remote base she followed Friday into was fit for human occupation. Not all of them are.”
Though to be fair, that was in part because opening a portal to Earth from one of the more uninhabitable bases would have caused everyone in Shuri’s secret laboratory to be sucked right out along with all of the air in the area. Friday had moved to an inhabitable base ahead of time specifically so she would be able to step in if JARVIS and Shuri needed her help.
T’Challa processes this slowly, seeming to struggle for a moment with wrapping his head around Tony’s words. Honestly, Tony isn’t sure why. He’d shown the man, along with his father and Nakia, some of his mining operations across the Solar System. Why was this so surprising to him? Or maybe he was struggling because he no longer knew how the hell he was going to get Shuri back if she was in outer space.
“… Is she still out there?”
Yeah, sounded like it was the latter option. Smiling slightly, Tony shakes his head.
“No, she’s not. Like I said, she and I talked remotely and I was able to convince her to come back to Earth. The only way I was able to do so was by promising her that she would not have to return to Wakanda unless she wished to, as well as get her own laboratory, completely cut off from my own holdings. So you see, T’Challa, I’ve been completely hands off with her so far. And I intend to continue being hands off going forward.”
T'Challa works his jaw in silence for a moment, the Crown Prince of Wakanda not at all happy with this. But it seems he’s wiser than his parents, because in the end, he backs down. Well, partially anyways.
“I would speak with her, to ensure you are telling the truth.”
Tony shrugs.
“She has your number, yes?”
When T’Challa nods, Tony gives the other man a wan smile.
“Then I will promise to strongly encourage her to give you a call so you stop sending War Dogs up against JARVIS. She seems like a good kid, I suspect she’ll speak with you for their sake if nothing else.”
T’Challa grits his teeth but ultimately nods.
“I suppose that is the best I can ask for. And you… can we trust you not to reveal us to the world in our time of weakness?”
Here, Tony leans forward and scoffs, lacing his fingers together in front of him as he balances his elbows on the desk.
“I’m not the one who invited a trained assassin into your home, Prince T’Challa. While I know JARVIS and I haven’t been the friendliest of acquaintances where you and your Kingdom are concerned, we haven’t done a single overtly aggressive thing in your direction. Shit, I even went after Klaue to get the Vibranium I needed to jumpstart the rest of my operations.”
Tony leans in further.
“I gift wrapped your country’s greatest criminal for you and even warned you about the dagger heading for your backs. And what did you do? You welcomed the viper in with open arms.”
T’Challa grimaces, and it’s obvious from the pain in the other man’s eyes that he’s still struggling to come to terms with his father’s failure. It was hard, realizing that your daddy was fallible. Harder still when your father’s mistakes led to some of the worst days of your life. Heh, Tony could relate.
“… Your note regarding Killmonger was needlessly vague. You could have let us know the threat properly. Not to mention… how did you even know he was a threat to begin with?”
Leaning back again, Tony hums and doesn’t even bother answering that last part.
“I kept it vague out of respect for your father. I assumed he didn’t want anyone to know he killed his own brother, seeing as it wasn’t common knowledge. I assumed, given he and his advisor knew who Erik truly was, that the warning in the message would get across to them both. Instead, King T’Chaka spent the last years of his life trying connect with a young man who wanted him very, very dead.”
To say T’Challa doesn’t look happy at all of that would be an understatement. But at the same time, he can’t really refute anything Tony has said. So in the end, he doesn’t bother trying.
“I shall await my sister’s call, Stark. Goodbye.”
As the call ends, Tony rolls his eyes and leans even further back in his chair, until he’s staring up at the ceiling.
“J?”
“Shuri has agreed to call her brother within the hour, Sir. While she laughed herself to tears at some of my more… creative ways of dealing with the less aggressive of Wakanda’s War Dogs, she is also aware that there have been casualties. She has convinced herself that those War Dogs were all secretly working for Erik anyways to assuage any guilt she feels over their deaths. Even still, she sees the value in convincing her brother that she is safe and unharmed, and most importantly, independent from your… machinations.”
Tony chuckles at the frustration that leaks into JARVIS’ voice with that last word. His headache is already starting to ease, how lovely.
“Thanks JARVIS, you’re the bomb.”
“… Of course Sir. And I apologize for the mess. It was not my intention to cause you so much trouble.”
Tony waves a hand dismissively at that. He’d told T’Challa the truth, after a fashion. JARVIS was his own intelligent being and could do whatever the fuck he wanted. Of course, what he hadn’t told T’Challa was that ‘whatever the fuck JARVIS wanted’ usually meant doing what Tony wanted.
If he’d asked him to, JARVIS would have left Shuri to her fate at Killmonger’s hands and not interfered. If he’d decided Shuri was better off back in Wakanda for some reason, JARVIS would have bowed to his Creator’s wishes. But part of knowing that his unchained Artificial Intelligence would still follow any order he gave was knowing when not to give said orders.
“The mess wasn’t of your making, J. That was all T’Chaka and Killmonger. Maybe I should have just killed Erik Killmonger myself all those years ago, but I feel like I had enough on my plate at the time.”
Hindsight was twenty-twenty, Tony supposed. Still, he fully intended to remain hands off with Shuri going forward. Not just because of T’Challa’s disapproval, but also because he was busy with his own things and didn’t have time to deal with a grieving eighteen year old who thought she knew everything.
Shuri had the capacity to become the smartest person on the planet, but Tony wasn’t much of a mentor or a teacher. He never had been. Better to just leave her in JARVIS’ nonexistent hands. That said…
“There’s no way Shuri is well-adjusted at this point.”
“Sir?”
Tony sighs.
“She grew up in the lap of luxury, believing her people to be inherently superior to the rest of the planet, and her family to be inherently superior to the rest of her people. And then her father basically stopped paying attention to her in favor of her murderous cousin, causing her to become more and more withdrawn from society as a whole, until an Artificial Intelligence in her computer terminal was literally the main source of contact with another being that she had. Am I wrong?”
“… That is not an incorrect summation of events Sir.”
Snorting, Tony rubs the bridge of his nose for a second.
“She needs socialization, stat. Friends her own age. Not normal people… that would never work. No, we need a group of relatively smart young people who may not be able to give her a run for her money, but can at least try to keep up with her. But… who?”
Tony furrows his brow as he thinks it over, trying to figure out if he knows anyone that fits the bill. Until suddenly, JARVIS comes in with a suggestion out of left field.
“There is always Peter Parker, Sir.”
… Heh, talk about his failures as a mentor and a teacher. There were very good reasons that Tony Stark didn’t think about Peter Parker very often, even knowing there was a version of him alive in this timeline all this time. In fact, back when he’d let JARVIS in on his true nature, he’d told the AI to keep an eye on Peter and keep him protected, but otherwise keep Tony completely disconnected from how the boy was doing.
To be fair, back in 2008 when Tony had come back in time, Peter should have only been seven years old anyways. And now in 2016, he should have only been fifteen. Frowning, Tony glances up at the ceiling.
“I mean, I know eighteen and fifteen aren’t too far apart J, but I’d still say Peter is a little too young to be a peer to Shuri, even if he is a veritable genius for his age.”
There’s a pause at that, one long enough that Tony assumes JARVIS is dropping it. Only, that’s not the case because a few moments later, the AI responds with a confused tone.
“Sir, Peter Parker is not fifteen. Peter Parker has already turned eighteen and is currently in his Senior Year at Midtown School of Science and Technology.”
… What?
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A/N: You guys thought I was done blindsiding Tony with alterations to the timeline?! Lol. Lmao even.
This probably is the last big one though. OR IS IT?!