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When T’Challa first got the email he was leery of the idea but the email from his apparently very outgoing and charismatic roommate made him less resistant to the idea. If the school wanted to house their prized student from home with their prized international student than fine, he was sure he could live with the arrangement. Tony Stark, as it turned out, was a few years younger than him but he was brilliant. Tony was also a little too loud, a little too bright in every way, and a little too young to be in a PhD program but then so was he. It was nice, having someone he could relate to around for once.
*
Almost one month later he finds himself video chatting with his father while Tony is out to avoid distractions. He has a bad habit of showing up out of nowhere to ask a bunch of weird questions and then suggest an impromptu trip to Italy. Tony may be all over the place but T’Challa did not mind his inability to keep still, it insured there was never a dull moment. Like when Tony decided that he must learn how to cook during his first week of school and woke T’Challa up with an explosion loud enough that the frat next door called the police. It tuned out that something went wrong with the pressure cooker and the lid was now imbedded in the ceiling because, according to Tony, it gave the house character. T’Challa leaves it there because he found the situation amusing and he liked telling the story to his various study groups.
“Is everything going alright?” his father asks, shifting anxiously in his seat. He had been the same way when T’Challa left for Oxford, worried that something would go wrong.
“Everything is fine, I am doing well and my roommate is a little strange but for the most part he is fine. The most I have to complain about is the five hundred fortune cookies sitting in the living room for some inexplicable reason,” T’Challa says. There was a reason for their presence but he felt he should spare his poor father the details of Tony Stark’s embarrassing method of handing out his number. His father does not need to know about such things.
His father frowns, “fortune cookies?” he asks, brows drawing together.
“Yes, those things Americans claim are Chinese when-”
“I know what a fortune cookie is, T’Challa,” his father tells him tiredly.
“You looked confused,” T’Challa says in his own defense.
“I am confused, what need would your roommate have for five hundred fortune cookies?” he asks.
“He likes fortune cookies, I guess,” T’Challa says. It is clear his father does not believe that Tony had fortune cookies lying around for no reason but he does not pry, instead he asks about T’Challa’s studies and if he was enjoying classes. T’Challa tells him that class is going well but it still rains far too much, even if it rained less here than when he attended Oxford. His father, of course, finds his irritation with the moisture amusing. It was hardly his fault he preferred the dryness of Wakanda, or at the very least the heat that came with the moisture. America was wet and miserable, though less wet and miserable than Britain. Humidity might make his hair frizz but at least he was warm.
*
“Tell me about the fortune cookies,” Shuri tells him a week later, spread out on her bed with her computer.
“They’re made of sugar, flour, vanilla, and-” Shuri cuts him off, mumbling in their native language about him being a smartass.
“I mean what are five hundred fortune cookies doing in your living room? It is hardly as if a person accidentally acquires five hundred fortune cookies, that is a lot of cookies,” she points out. He sighs because he has two options, one, he could lie and Shuri would harass him until he told her, or he could just tell her.
“It is his method of being ‘cute’ when handing out his number. At least they taste good even if the person who handed them out is tasteless,” he jokes.
Shuri frowns, “he has five hundred fortune cookies with his number in them? Do they work?” she asks.
“Unfortunately yes. I rather like him most days, most nights, however….” He could have gone his whole life without knowing anything about Tony’s sex life but like everything else Tony did he was loud and open about it. There were things T’Challa’s eyes could not unsee.
“Americans have no standards,” Shuri declares and T’Challa agrees. She asks a few more questions about Tony and he is happy to fill her in on their late night conversations, his brilliance, that time he almost blew up the house, and that he was not rude to his cat. Americans and their dogs, they were nice enough creatures, but they did not hold a flame to cats. They were not as majestic, and cats did not try and shove their nose up any crevice on the human body they could find.
*
T’Challa is studying one night, trying his best to cram as much information into his overloaded cranium as possible. That was not possible, however, when he was hungry and he did not have time to cook, nor could he order pizza at this hour. For a moment he does not know what to do but then he spies those damn fortune cookies and picks the box up, staring at it for a moment before settling with the cookies and breaking them apart. They did not taste particularly good but they would do.
*
T’Challa’s new favorite snack is those fortune cookies Tony bought as something of a joke, but then they started working so who was he to interfere? And then T’Challa, his freakishly hot roommate, seriously what did they feed people in Wakanda, started eating them and… “Clearly its some weird flirtation thing,” he says to Rhodey and Sam.
They exchange a look and Rhodey leans forward, “I promise you that is not this is,” Rhodey tells him.
“Party popper, is too. Why else would he eat my cookies?” Tony asks. Obviously it was some subtle flirtation thing and Tony was there. His mother, well nanny, didn’t raise a fool, he knew a good thing when he saw it and T’Challa was like every good thing Tony could have ever asked for. First off he’s hot, second, he’s also a genius so when Tony went off on rants about particle accelerators and synthesizing elements using technical terms he didn’t get lost.
Plus he’s funny, he didn’t get frustrated with Tony even though Tony knew he was annoying as hell, and he didn’t even get mad about that time he almost blew up the kitchen. Actually he thought it was hilarious and told everyone about it. Granted he didn’t look like he found it too funny at the time but he was adjusting to the time zone difference still so the man could be forgiven. And, and, the best thing is that he had a giant fluffy black cat that was the sweetest feline ever named Nightmare. Actually no, the nest thing was watching trash reality television while petting Nightmare together. Anyone who was willing to watch shitty T.V with him was totally his new best friend, and if they cat a cute ass cat that looked like a giant soot sprite that was named ‘Nightmare’ that was even better.
Clearly he and T’Challa were made for each other.
“Tony, they’re cookies, that’s why he’s eating them,” Sam says.
“Honestly you two have no imagination, we’re clearly soul mates.”
*
“I think I can speak for the both of us when I say that we need to save T’Challa from Tony,” Sam says very seriously. Rhodey sighs because as much as he loved his best friend sometimes he got these ideas in his head and he wouldn’t shake them unless they were disproven or he made them a reality. So yeah, he and Sam had to save poor T’Challa from Tony.
“What were you thinking?” Rhodey asks because Sam is always the man with a plan.
*
When Tony gets home he hears laughing and chattering from the living room so he wanders in to see what’s up. T’Challa ran like five hundred study groups because he’s a good person who could actually stand explaining information to people. Tony tried back when he was still with Bucky and he needed some help with his stats homework but all that did was frustrate both of them because it was so easy Tony didn’t understand what Bucky wasn’t getting. Bucky had apparently grown so confused he didn’t even know what he was confused about anymore and they decided that was that, Tony was never doing that again. Then he was with Pep for awhile and he tried to help her with some math and that ended in her leaving him for Natasha.
He learned his lesson, math ruined relationships, do not explain it to your lovers and now he lived his life by it. So far so good, and if he was right about T’Challa he wouldn’t even have to worry about it because T’Challa is great at math. So clearly they were meant to be together.
Of course when he walks into the living room he finds Sam and Rhodey there too, and all of them were eating those damn fortune cookies. Sam and Rhodey give him looks because clearly they had no interest in him; they’re with each other. Total buzz kills. “Toss me one of those cookies,” he says somewhat grumpily. Rhodey tosses him a cookie and smirks at him because he’s an asshole. Sam starts doing the Eyebrow Thing at him except Tony isn’t fluent in Sam Brow so he has no damn clue what was happening, just that Rhodey found him amusing.
He opens the packet and takes out the cookie, cracking it so he could eat it sans his phone number. “Ugh, this is disgusting,” he says, chewing on the gross tasting cookie. How the hell were these things getting him laid? Not that he was going to complain about it.
“That is part of the appeal, they are tasteless and bad and that makes them good,” T’Challa says as Tony takes another bite of cookie out of morbid curiosity. It tastes just as bad as the first bite and he wrinkles his nose. He still eats the rest of the cookie though.
“You might make a point,” Tony says, picking another cookie out of the box. God, how many of these things did he order? T’Challa has made them his new favorite snack and he’s handed out quite a few of these suckers and there was still more than half the box left.
“So,” Rhodey says, pulling a new fortune cookie out of the box, “so are you going to fill T’Challa in on your soul mate theory?” he asks.
Asshole. So he had two options, one, he could make shit up and that sounded really good right now or two, “we’re clearly made for each other,” he blurts out to T’Challa. Alright so his brain went Option Two without his consent, alright, time to play it cool. “I mean we’re both geniuses so we don’t have to dumb down our theories, we both love trash television even though we know it’s trash, and we love cats. Seriously, we should go buy one from a shelter right now and rehabilitate it.”
T’Challa’s eyes light up, “lets go, I’ve had my eye on this very fat one named Jake and now that I know you are okay with another cat I want ten,” he says, all but jumping out of his seat. Sam and Rhodey’s jaws drop in shock as he and T’Challa start walking away.
“Jake, that’s the fat orange tabby, yeah, the older one?” he asks.
“You even know which one I am talking about! Perhaps we were made for each other,” T’Challa says with a small gasp.
*
Tony curls up with T’Challa, Nightmare, and Jake on the couch totally convinced he was right about those fortune cookies. “TMZ has more interesting things to say about you,” T’Challa says, pulling his attention away from smoothing Jake’s hair out. For being stuck in a shelter for so long he was pretty normal for a cat. Well, he’s morbidly obese but the diet food wasn’t helping so Tony figured he was just meant to be the size of a butterball turkey.
“Do they? Am I sleeping with Rhodey again? Or is it Pepper this week? Or, or, is it some sorry first year trying to ask me questions that I’m sleeping with now?” He was genuinely curious; TMZ came up with some creative shit sometimes. Of course that’s when a picture of him and T’Challa pop up on screen and they all start talking about some homosexual interracial fairy tale, except they mistake Tony for being the richer one.
“I could buy your entire country and have billions left over and I am the popper? I am the prince! Literally!” T’Challa says, rolling his eyes in irritation. “This is because they think that Africa is poor, and a country instead of a continent. I am the rich one!”
“Well, we’re both rich but you’re like way richer even if I sold the company and kept all that too. So does that mean you’ll spoil me for life?” he asks, grinning.
“Of course honey, I will buy you as many cats to rehabilitate as your heart desires,” T’Challa tells him, smiling down on him.
“I love you,” he blurts, surprised that he actually means it.
“You know, our love story is strange and makes no sense, and involves far too many fortune cookies but I love you too. It is nice to have someone around that actually understands my science talk. No one else that I know can keep up and it is nice to not have to dumb things down for once,” T’Challa tells him. Tony makes a noise of agreement and Jake reaches over his chest to smack Nightmare’s head. Nightmare retaliates by launching off T’Challa’s leg and tackling Jake onto another cushion.
“You leave my fortune cookies alone, getting those things was the best decision I ever made, I never would have blurted out that soul mate thing if it wasn’t for the cookies,” Tony says.
“Oh, I know you well, you would have said it eventually. You always to,” T’Challa says, pressing a kiss into Tony’s hair.