But hear me out: when Tony finds out about how Shuri healed Ross he moves hell, heaven and earth to get there and downright begs Shuri to take in Rhodey as a patient because she’s clearly the best and he’ll sell his soul if it means healing his best friend but then Shuri just smiles and says ‘sure!’ and he bursts into tears right there in her lab.
Okay, but this isn’t painful enough, so time for me to shine!
Everyone expects Tony to be a dick to Shuri the first time he meets her. Like I mean, EVERY-damn-BODY. His ego is legend, he once made Neil DeGrasse Tyson cry at the Nobels. It’s especially bad when it’s someone new to him. And here’s this itty bitty girl-child making claims to greatness and scoffing at Tony’s work.
Reporters are waiting with baited breath.
T’Challa has practiced his “Make my sister cry and no-one will find the body” speech in from of a mirror.
Oyoke and Nakia have insisted on teaching Shuri hand-to-hand.
Pepper and Happy institute social media lock-downs at the Stark Gala the meeting will take place at (they couldn’t exactly not-invite the girl who donated the most to the Maria Stark Foundation.)
Peter actually webbed his way to the tower to try to calm Tony down the night before, and got yelled at by Aunt May for breaking curfew.
Tony walks straight to her at the gala.
The world seems to pause.
He puts a folder in front of her on a side table meant to hold drinks.
“My best friend. Care to take a look?”
She hands him her sparkling cider.
Pepper near about has an aneurysm in the two seconds before Tony happily takes it from her.
Shuri looks at the file.
“Another broken white boy for me to fix?” she says with a grin like sunshine and open sky. “Of course.”
“Rhodey is black,” Tony says quietly. It is the only time in their entire friendship over the next decade he corrects her. He doesn’t cry. Stark men are made of iron. But he holds whatever she hands him. He never puts up the wall of sass and self-image to push her away.
And when she tells him Bucky Barnes, his parent’s killer, is Rhodey’s physio partner?
He sends her every single page of his father’s notes on Super Soldiers.
oh my god yes please
@bairnsidhe you just made this SO much better. Would you mind if I used your addition to this post as the center of a story I want to write?
wupacing 