screwyoumarvel | MCA #9, Wednesday Night

"Do you sleep with it in your bed or something?" Tony. Focus. He say up, touching the bridge of his nose experimentally. "I--uh--I need your help."

With the strange man on your couch, Steve. Didn't Tony bring you the best things?

"Beside my bed," Steve corrected. "In case of emergencies." Be glad you were wearing a helmet, Tony! It was why you still had a head! "And I guessed that part by how you're in my apartment in the middle of the night in your armor. Unless you just came to chat." If he had, Steve was tempted to just go back to sleep. He wouldn't, of course, but it was tempting. "What is it?"

Steve, don't hate. That way leads to Civil War. Don't make them Civil War!

"I. Um."

Tony looked out the door toward the living room.

"Maybe you should just come see?"

Steve sighed again and conceded, "All right, fine. Just give me a minute to get some pants." Pants were critical.

Sure, draw attention to it.

Tony looked down before nodding in agreement. "I'll--just." He scrambled to his feet (which was less simple when you wore armor heavier than most motorcycles) and went to check on the, ah, guest.

Steve came out into the living room a few minutes later, wearing sweatpants and in the process of pulling a t-shirt on. He finished doing so and--froze. When he saw what was on his couch. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten before asking, "Tony, what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" A beat. "There was a misunderstanding and it might have been my fault AIM shot at him."

"You shouldn't have even been out! You should have been here! On this island! In your dorm room! Not running around in that--whatever fancy armor that is. Don't you have finals?" God, Tony.

"I finished with them!" That made it okay, Steve. God. "They had this arms dealer coming in from Africa. It was all over SHIELD and the FBI chatter!"

Which somehow meant Tony had to deal with it.

"So SHIELD and the FBI knew about it," Steve pointed out, "and were probably handling it, so I hope you didn't manage to ruin it for them." You didn't, did you, Tony? Steve would be very disappointed if you had.

"No." Maybe. "He was following them too," Tony added. Because you should blame the guy in the cat costume. "I--might have thought he was AIM's contact. He attacked me when I was just doing a stake out."

One that didn't necessarily involve fighting!

"Why were you even--no, you know what, never mind. You never learn. Nothing I say is ever going to get through your head." Steve might have been projecting issues with more than one Tony Stark there. "So now you've brought me--Black Panther, I assume, unless Black Cat is really different in your universe."

"...is that what his name is?" Tony asked, tilting his head for a moment as he looked at the man. Then--very carefully--pulled the mask off the unconscious man.

Man might have been a little kind. He was probably only a few years older than Tony.

"I assume so. He could call himself something completely different." Universes were weird. Some people were kids, other people were actors. "So what did you want me to do about him?" Especially now that you took his mask off, Tony. Well, at least Steve could tell more easily that he wasn't just dead now.

"...something?" He didn't know! "You've actually done this kind of thing before," Tony hissed.

A beat.

"Wait. I've seen him before. He's that prince from--" An African country that no one knew because they were soooo isolated.

"I don't usually bring unconscious strangers to other people's houses, no." Steve sighed. "...Wakanda. He's the prince of Wakanda." Unconscious royal strangers.

Tony stared at Steve for a moment and then at the newly dubbed Prince T'Challa.

"Well. That explains how he was able to cut through the suit."

Steve glanced over the suit. "It looks fine to me."

Right. That.

"Different suit." Damn you, Vibranium! "The claws are probably made of the same kind of thing as your shield..."

Tony, don't get ideas.

"So you put on another suit and went right back out. Of course." Steve resisted the urge to facepalm again, or to correct Tony on his shield's exact composition. But, "Don't touch my shield." A beat. "Or his claws." That one should have been obvious, but with Tony you could never be too careful.

"You already hit me with your shield," Tony grumbled. He was going to have a spectacular bruise over his nose that he'd claim happened in a fight. And not being too dumb to knock.

Somewhere in this would be when the unconscious man on the couch became distinctly more conscious. And angry.

But angry might have been his default state of being.

"And he cut your armor with his claws but that is not the same thing and you know it." Don't play obtuse with Steve, Tony. He'll frown at you.

Steve did not spare a glance for the more conscious gentleman on the couch, as he was too busy glaring at Tony.

"If I can study it, I can make sure that doesn't happen again!"

WITH SCIENCE. Science that also didn't notice the angry prince on the couch. Oh, Marvel.

The angry prince was just not that important in the overall scheme of things right now. Not when there was arguing with Tony to be done.

This was probably a new sensation for him.

"Or you could stop running around getting yourself into trouble with the armor in the first place." To say nothing of how the properties of vibranium made that unlikely.

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