Greetings! I finally got this one finished; it's been a labor of love, with a bit of 'oh, really' mixed in, as the initial plot was a prompt by Boss (guest): I've been thinking Shuri thinks she's so intelligent imagine if she encounters Ned or Peter who show her just because they are outsiders they are just as advance.

That sounded like a lot of fun and a storyline finally started to talk to me . . . and then, lo and behold, it merged with another prompt. This one came from Lillarry: Peter's parents were spies who died on a mission when he was little. As Wanda is 13 years older than Peter (MCU Wanda was born in 1989) it wouldn't be difficult for her to be the enemy who eliminated them

And thus, FIC was born. The mood in this is a little . . . uneven . . . for which I apologize. But I hate writing angst, so the less the better. And the first section really lent itself well to humor. The serious turn was not something I was expecting, but even after a few re-reads, my muse was fine with the shift.

With that said . . . I hope you guys are as well, and enjoy this double-feature prompt. As always, please read and comment; hearing you guys' thoughts is seriously the best part of my day (well, my work day; weekends are generally their own reward).

So:

Surprise!

Steve Rogers, King T'Challa and Princess Shuri of Wakanda, and Wanda Maximoff each received an exceedingly unpleasant surprise one otherwise tranquil morning, each of them building on the one before and creating a cascade of devastation that somehow came as a complete surprise to all four id—uh, recipients.

Said devastation was truly impressive, to the point that quite a few outside observers found themselves munching on the Wakandan version of street tacos and placing bets on which person would combust first.

Showing either a startling degree of collective precognizance or a simple understanding of the spoiled rotten brat, Maximoff was the overwhelming favorite.

It started small, as things often do, and as such, it took everyone time to realize there was a problem, since Steve was the only one who knew something was wrong. Of course, he didn't know that he knew, but after spending most of the night and the entire morning trying and failing to figure and out where that muffled, nagging, never-ending beeping was coming from, he pushed down enough pride to speak to one of the women who guarded the door of their suite, and after considerable pleading (read: whining), she reluctantly took the information to Princess Shuri — who, to everyone's surprise, was there in less than twenty minutes. It then took another two hours of increasingly-frustrated searching to ascertain that the noise was somewhere in their shared palace suite, but that was it. Shuri's irritation at this lack of useful information was compounded by the fact that nobody could hear it but Rogers, which meant they could help him look, but without being able to narrow down a location, everyone else was useless in the search.

That sound was the first part of Steve's unpleasant surprise. Shuri's introduction came when her high-tech scanner, lauded by her people as hands-down as better than anything Tony Stark could create, didn't find a thing. It didn't even register the noise, which the others were finally able to hear when . . . somehow . . . one of the Wakandan scientists managed to temporarily create what Barton jokingly called a Zero Room and blocked all outside simulation. He was only able to maintain that for about fifteen minutes, but that was enough time to allow them all to hear the beeping that was driving Steve up the wall and ascertain it wasn't coming from the main room, which left the bedrooms as the only other option.

Shuri's exclamation of triumph contained more than a little smugness, accompanied by her waving her scanner in the hall leading to the Rogues' private quarters . . . and was promptly swamped by her bewilderment when her equipment still didn't locate where the sound was originating. The Rogue Avengers were standing in a group in the middle of the room, highly displeased (or possibly constipated; the adage about drinking foreign waters held as true in Wakanda as they did in Mexico) at this unexpected failure. The Dora Milaje were stone-faced as they watched their princess, the most intelligent person in their country and suggested by some people to have exceeded both Tony Stark's intelligence and talent for inventing, employ five different attempts to make the scanner work before finally giving up with an aggravated sigh and turning the thing off.

"What's going on?" Barton demanded, sneering at Rahin when she hissed at his disrespect and stepped between him and her princess, one hand on her spear in an obvious warning that he ignored. "You're supposed to b—"

He was interrupted by the unexpected change to the beeping. It had been a steady, constant rhythm and pitch, which they had all become accustomed to, so when it suddenly started sounding like it was . . . drunk . . . for lack of a better description, the entire room instinctively looked at the ceiling in absolute bafflement as the tone deepened, the pace slowed, and the beeps began to blur together. After one last sad bloop, blessed silence fell.

Followed by the next part of Steve Rogers' unpleasant surprise (and Shuri's, should she be asked).

Pop

Pingpingping

Boom

Whump

Fwing

The unexpected cacophony of sounds stopped as quickly as it began, leaving the people in the room in various stages of a defensive stance, but their collective confusion was stronger — and the feeling only increased when a small plume of purplish-grey smoke appeared beneath both closed doors of the team's bedrooms. Everyone stared at the innocuous-looking cloud as it dissipated, only for Romanova to suddenly turn white and mutter something in Russian, which not even Barton understood, as she hurried to the door of the room she and Maximoff shared and gave it a long, assessing look before pulling it open.

No one could see inside, but her vicious curse said plenty, even if it didn't provide any answers. Still swearing, she stalked into the room and, after some loud and aggressive noises, emerged a minute later, holding her last pair of Widow Bites on a towel. She was still cursing, but the sight of those beautiful, elegant, deadly weapons disintegrating amid puffs of dark smoke rendered everyone else mute.

Until Barton caught a clue. He swore just as violently as his partner and lunged for the room he shared with Wilson and Rogers, cursing up a blue streak as he banged around, and after a few seconds of hesitation, everyone followed. They were all alarmed and puzzled, but since the pair of spies had obviously figured out what was going on, they wanted to see as well.

So it was that Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, and Princess Shuri of Wakanda were met with the astonishing sight of Clint Barton, archer extraordinaire, holding his beloved bow and the quiver containing his last six arrows and staring in horror as they crumbled in his hands. Wilson gasped in denial and crossed the room to his personal cubby, looking frantically for his wings, only to hit his knees and moan, his hands covering his mouth as he watched them come apart with robust puffs of smoke. Stunned silence choked them all as the only possible meaning of such coordinated destruction became clear.

"No. No, he wouldn't," Rogers finally rasped, looking sick but also outraged, his eyes dark with the trademarked stubborn conviction that He Was Right. But when he finally took the few steps needed to reach his shield, it was clear that not only would 'he' do it, 'he' had. Vibranium was impervious to most things . . . but 'most' does not equal 'all'. Add to that caveat the reality of an external recall device, designed and built by one Tony Stark, combined with the vindictive fury of someone who has been deeply, irreparably wronged and betrayed and . . . well.

Suffice to say, Steve Rogers' iconic shield was now useful only as a paperweight. It couldn't even be used as a Frisbee, due to the new and permanent structural instability, and it was just too big to function as a dinner plate. Maybe it could work as a serving platter, but . . . well, those electric tremors weren't going to stop for quite some time, and as fascinating as the thought of cooking food on a literal hot plate was, using it as a paperweight was really the best outcome. It might — might — withstand one solid hit from a spear or sword, but a bullet would finish the disintegration and any kind of energy blast would vaporize the shield and possibly the poor schmuck holding it.

Rogers was in utter shock. He was unresponsive, staring blankly at his now-useless security blanket, so brutally and efficiently destroyed that there wasn't a single thing left to salvage, and Wilson wasn't any better. Maximoff didn't have a weapon to destroy, so she didn't understand any of it. But Barton and Romanova got the message loud and clear, and so did Princess Shuri.

Tony Stark knew exactly where his former teammates were.

And he wasn't merely furious with them.

He wanted blood . . . and vengeance was going to be his.

The last realization jolted the princess into action. She wasn't worried; in fact, despite the outrage that a colonizer had managed to breach her security, she had to concede that putting an external self-destruct feature into his equipment was brilliant. It was also difficult to do, since more and more people were developing EMPs to knock out technology, or utilizing jamming fields that would render such measures useless. She herself had upgraded Wakanda's security shields to incorporate both measures, along with a randomly-generated frequency that changed on an equally-random timescale.

All of which should have made what Stark had just done completely, utterly impossible.

And thus, the true arrival of Princess Shuri and King T'Challa's unpleasant surprises.

Because even as she bolted for her lab, summoning T'Challa as she went, a series of loud, echoing booms echoed from outside, shaking the thick palace walls and earning cries of alarm and confusion as literally everyone stopped what they were doing and crowded around the nearest window . . . and to a person, jaws dropped, eyes went wide with disbelief, and nobody could form words, coherent or not, as they watched the impossible happen before their dumbfounded eyes.

Wakanda's vaunted shields, which had kept its people away from outside corruption — sorry, influence — and also prevented anyone from seeing just how technologically advanced their country was, not to mention how wealthy, were collapsing in a masterful display of control that screamed "superior intellect" more effectively than a message printed on a Goodyear blimp. The fact that none of them — including those guarding the border — had seen so much as a single hint of the attack made it worse. And the crowning insult was the fact that there was no damage whatsoever to the land or the people. Wakanda's shields had fallen, but that was it. There was no army, no attack . . . there was nothing but a single craft, sleek and lethal-looking, gliding in slowly, without a care in the world, completely unconcerned with any possible defensive measures.

The sight of such breathtaking arrogance did exactly that and took Shuri's breath away . . . until she triggered the palace defenses, only to gape in utter denial when nothing happened. She didn't even get the small satisfaction of seeing the gun turrets try to move, or explode in a ball of flames. For all the reaction her weapons gave her, they might as well have been wax models.

All any Wakandan could do, including T'Challa and the international terrorists he'd given shelter to, was watch in stupefied silence as the jet circled the palace twice and eschewed the landing pad before landing as neatly in the courtyard as a cat settling in for a nap. Despite themselves, the population, whether watching live or on hastily-aired live TV, held its breath when nothing else happened for a solid six or seven minutes. Then the hatch opened and Tony Fucking Stark sauntered down the ramp, followed by three young men that nobody recognized, all of them dressed in clothes suited to a high-end tech conference, and all of them looking so unimpressed, the entire country felt inadequate without knowing why.

And thus, the arrival of Wanda Maximoff's unpleasant surprise.

T'Challa recovered first and stormed to the main palace doors, quickly followed by his sister and their personal guards, then the Rogues. He was yelling . . . well, nobody was quite sure what exactly he was saying, though the odds were good he was cursing Stark's ancestors, descendants, and cadet branches with extremely unpleasant venereal diseases. There was probably something about illegal entry and violation of sovereign borders as well, but the second Maximoff left the sanctuary of the palace, the most unexpected thing imaginable happened.

Well, it would have been the most unexpected thing had any of the Rogues or Wakandans known who he was.

Peter Parker, Queens' friendly, non-lethal, non-violent, neighborhood Spiderman, stepped in front of Stark, gave the woman a look so cold, frost actually formed on the windows for a few seconds . . . then, without the slightest change of expression, never mind a warning twitch, flung something at her so hard and fast, she didn't have a chance to deflect it before it smacked her right between the eyes.

A heartbeat later, she was screaming on the cobblestones, her body violently convulsing as the miniature Taser, designed specifically for her, did its job and incapacitated her. The violence so emotionlessly and unexpectedly exhibited kept everyone shocked into silence, one that wasn't broken even when she finally stopped screaming and went limp, conscious but unable to move. The young man waited several seconds, clearly ensuring she was safely debilitated, and then he dropped to a knee at her side and looked at her with eyes so full of hate that the group behind her took an involuntary step backwards.

The trio behind him just looked grimly satisfied, though sorrow was clearly visible in their eyes.

"You thought you'd gotten away with it," Peter hissed, venom dripping from each word and burning holes in the stone floor. "You thought no one would find out what you are, what you did. Who you killed. How you killed them. And why."

That stony pronouncement woke Rogers up and he scowled, stepping forward in an obvious attempt to get between Maximoff and the young man who had just assaulted her without warning and with no reason. He refused to acknowledge Tony and also ignored the two boys who'd accompanied Peter, so he understandably taken by still-more surprise when the young man didn't even look up, just snapped, "Don't even think about it, Steroid Shot. She isn't a kid and she wasn't misguided. My parents were abducted for their knowledge and research into genetics, and when they refused to talk under normal torture, Liszt gave them to her. She mentally tortured them both until she literally drained them dry of every single thing they knew. Then she used her sick, disgusting abilities to hold my dad to the wall and forced him to watch while six of HYRDA's soldiers came in and r—"

He stopped there, face green and chest heaving from the force of his heartsick rage, and all three men behind him took an instinctive step toward him, stopping reluctantly when he help up a hand, his eyes now boring into Steve's. The violence burning in that deceptively warm, brown gaze made him swallow hard, even as denial swelled up. Wanda was a good kid who'd been lied to and mislead. It wasn't her fault.

Clearly seeing where his thoughts had gone, Peter leaned forward, his eyes suddenly so full of rage that they were black, and spittle actually landed on Steve as he hissed, "That . . . that . . . your innocent little girl made him watch while his wife, my mother, was violently raped by soldiers under her command, you fucking bastard! And yes, she did," he spat, cutting Steve off before he could take a breath to protest. "You so thoughtfully dumped those tapes online for the entire world to see while committing treason, so I got to watch it happen, completely unprepared," he continued a little hysterically, eyes now blazing with an old pain that Steve had only seen once before.

Siberia.

Tony.

"I was doing research for a history project and looking up ancestors, you know?"

The young man suddenly sounded conversational and out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Nat and Clint both take unsubtle steps back, which confused him. However, he had no time to dwell on it.

"So you can imagine my horror when one of the links I clicked on was a remarkably clear video of my parents being tortured by a HYDRA grunt, followed by an extremely boring monologue of Liszt droning on about foolish anarchists and HYDRA's invincibility and his own superiority," he said, refusing to let Steve look away. "And I should have stopped. I should have gone and gotten Tony. But it was like watching a train wreck — which I've seen, by the way — and I couldn't do anything but watch your pet witch mentally rape them and force both of them to share every secret they had," he whispered in a tortured voice that made everyone who heard it shudder.

Steve, though . . . he didn't believe it. He couldn't. Wanda wouldn't do that, any more than Bucky had. Because they were innocent. This boy was lying so Tony could justify throwing them in prison again, because he couldn't admit that he was wrong and Steve was right.

Oblivious now to Steve's thoughts, Peter finally finished his thought. "Then, when they were no longer useful for information and the soldiers were done, she waved those dainty little hands and used that hideous red magic to snap their necks before HYDRA took them away and laid the fake trail of dying in a plane crash so nobody would get suspicious. And it worked beautifully, since HYDRA grew and thrived and obtained the means and authority to do things like to people my parents, and no one thought to stop them — because thanks to your moronic, power-hungry, delusional girlfriend, they knew they could."

How dare this brat sully Peggy's name with such horrible, baseless accusations?!

Enraged at all the lies the boy was spewing, lies that poor Wanda had no choice but to listen to, Steve straightened to his full, intimidating height and took exactly one step forward, only to pause when the boy with blondish hair raised some kind of odd-looking gun. Being Steve Rogers, he scoffed at the notion a regular bullet would affect him.

So when the projectile slammed home in his groin, causing instant, agonizing fire to burn like acid through his entire body, it was just as understandable that his disbelief was stronger than the pain . . . albeit not by much. And as loudly as he was screaming, curled up in a fetal position, the observers could all be forgiven for thinking that he'd been seriously injured.

Which he hadn't. Despite the vindictive requests of everyone involved — Pepper, Rhodes, Happy, Peter, Harley, Ned, MJ — Tony had reluctantly but firmly refused to make the bullet sterilize Rogers. "If we do that, we aren't any better than he is," he'd warned, eyes dark with conviction, though it was heavily underscored with regret. "Just because we personally believe he should be prevented from having children for the good of all humanity doesn't make us right. A lot of people said that about Howard, and if their wish had come true, I wouldn't be here. And be honest: that would just suck."

So the bullet hurt like hell and it was definitely funny watching the tall, blond asshole writhing around, but he'd be fine in an hour or so.

Having said his piece to Rogers, Peter promptly proceeded to ignore him, fixing his lethal attention back on Maximoff, who finally realized that this was real and that she was in dark, dangerous trouble. Her arrogant exterior cracked because she could no longer hide her fear, something Peter relished with an intensity that was very, very unnerving.

"Do you understand that I could kill you and no one could stop me?" he breathed, sounding almost gentle . . .

. . . and everyone stopped breathing, deeply, viscerally afraid for a reason they couldn't name but sent ice sliding through their veins.

She wet herself and whimpered, but still couldn't move, which only amplified her fear, and Peter smiled in response.

Everyone else was paralyzed at the sudden realization this young man might very well kill her with his bare hands, that gentle smile still on his lips.

Tony, though . . . he was terrified. He'd agreed to this because he knew Peter, so he hadn't been concerned that he'd lose control while confronting the little bitch.

He should have known better. Peter felt exactly the way he had when he'd discovered the full scope of Rogers' lies and betrayals, which was completely natural and expected. He would have killed Steve Rogers and never felt a shred of remorse or regret, because he had long since learned that if you left people who hurt you alive and unpunished, they tended to do it again. He also didn't care nearly as much about himself as he should, but he was fiercely, dangerously protective of the people he loved. You hurt them, you died (unless you were Hammer, who wasn't worth killing and instead got to waste away in prison for the rest of his truly useless life).

Peter, though . . . he would be entirely justified in killing her, yes, and nobody would blame him or judge him . . . but it would destroy him. The second he emerged from the protective, righteous fury consuming him, he would choke on regret and self-hatred and would quickly spiral into self-destruction.

Like hell was Tony letting that happen. He and Peter had finally gotten their act together and acknowledged who they were to each other, as had he and Harley, and Harley and Peter. It was a touch ironic that Ned was the most emotionally stable one of the group, so that trio formed immediately, but the end result was that Tony Stark had three sons (much to the surprise of Mr and Mrs Leeds) and he would protect them with every breath in his body.

So if Wanda needed to die for Peter to have peace, fine. Tony would do it.

He was a step away from his son when he spoke again . . . and once more stopped the country in its tracks.

"I would, too. Just break every bone in your body or let you experience the effectiveness of Chinese water torture . . . but truthfully, you just aren't worth it. You aren't worth my attention or any more of my time," he whispered, his expression finally darkening from that terrifying gentleness to normal, safe anger. "And the other people you've hurt just for power or fake revenge, they deserve better. So I'm gonna put this lovely collar on you and seal those nasty powers away for good, and then I'm gonna drop you from a plane into the courtyard of Sokovia's national prison. They're waiting for us, you see, because you've been tried in absentia and found guilty — isn't it wonderful how much video evidence is available?"

That sounded downright cheerful and everyone shifted again, extremely disquieted. This wasn't . . . well . . . the threats and the rapid-fire personality changes were things Tony Stark was known for among his enemies, but seeing a teenager do it was alarming and sending waves of foreboding down everyone's spines.

And then Peter kept talking, kept explaining, making sure the little witch truly understood just how much trouble she was in, and how she had exactly no control over what was about to happen.

"Your punishment, something I personally requested, is to work one year of hard labor for every person you voluntarily killed, tortured, or assaulted. Oh, and before you think that's not so bad," he told her, sounding disturbingly gleeful now and making everyone swallow hard. "You'll be doing things like building outhouses from scratch and cleaning them by hand and moving 100lb rocks by yourself. And at their . . . emphatic . . . demands, which I actually had nothing to do with but think is a brilliant idea, your victims' family members, because you left no survivors, will supervise — and they will have full and total control over you for that year. Then, if you survive those 294 years, you'll be dumped in the gulag to rot. Insignificant and forgotten. You don't even have a name. You're nothing but Prisoner DQ1682490."

The silence that swelled up when he finished talking would have drowned an elephant, had one wandered by. But not even a horrified, neck-deep-in-denial Steve Rogers was able to object when Peter held out a steady hand and Ned stepped forward, placing a deceptively-delicate red collar on his palm before squeezing his shoulder and murmuring something too soft for anyone but Peter to hear. No one spoke when he locked it in place around her scrawny throat, or moved to stop him when he stood up and yanked her to her feet, allowing Harley to roughly cuff her wrists behind her back before he and Ned took up their places at Peter's shoulder and Tony settled in at their backs, his gaze steady and alert.

The four of them stared at the Wakandan crowd, with the Rogue Avengers mixed in, faces now expressionless, for several minutes before Shuri, who had actually recovered faster than her brother, finally couldn't take it anymore. She despised the witch, though not as much as this young man so deservedly did, so she was thrilled to be getting rid of her. "Guard her until they are ready to leave," she ordered the closest quartet of Dora Milaje, who bowed and obeyed, looking as gleeful as warriors of their caliber could. Tony arched his eyebrows at that, but didn't object since Peter didn't.

That matter handled, Shuri focused on her true concern. "How did you take down my defenses?" she demanded, stepping forward to direct her question at Tony.

And was visibly shocked when Ned laughed.

"Oh, please. It took me less than an hour to override the code and the only reason it took that long was because I needed to make them fall as we came in, instead of all at once," he replied scornfully. "Whoever wrote that code was pathetic; I was better when I was fourteen."

An indignant squawk, hastily muffled, came from somewhere in the back of the crowd, while Shuri just frowned. She wanted to object, but coding ability had nothing to do with access to vibranium, so it was possible he was more skilled in that regard. After all, he was with Tony Stark, who was not only brilliant himself, but also well-known for not keeping incompetent people on his payroll. "Very well," she said, nodding her acceptance before broaching her next concern. "And how did you bypass the protections specifically designed to prevent outside electronic interference? Not the tracking system itself, that makes sense," she clarified, cutting that rebuttal off. "But you should not have been able to activate the actual self-destruct. My system is designed to prevent that exact thing."

The other young man, who'd shot Rogers, snorted. "You think two-dimensionally," he explained curtly. "The very fact that we were able to actively track their equipment means you have a weak spot, and I know how kids think. The design itself is clever, sure, but like I said, it's two-dimensional. You never thought about someone reverse-engineering the outgoing signal. And once I did that, it was literal child's play for Peter to make your system stop protecting the alien signals. Destroying them wasn't even child's play for Tony; he put on a blindfold and found all four weapons just by using your own roadmap, just to see how many tries it took — it was one each, if you want to know. We should totally do that again," he said as an aside to Tony, who snorted quietly in reply, before looking back at Shuri and drawling, "I hate to break it to you, Princess, but even cheating with vibranium, ya'll just aren't that good. You've got promise, yeah, but none of you have any real experience and you have no idea how to work with real-world materials."

Now Shuri was affronted and sucked in a deep breath, about to tear into the arrogant child who had spoken so contemptuously to her, when there was suddenly a great deal of rustling from the crowd behind her, accompanied by her mother appearing from nowhere.

"That is excellent information to know," she said cordially to Stark and his sons, though her body was taut with anger. Who it was meant for wasn't as clear as it should have been, though, and both Shuri and T'Challa shivered. "And we will most definitely take it under consideration. But for now, I hope you'll understand that I have to ask you to do what you came to do and remove this group of terrorists from my country. Immediately."

Being neither a fool nor inexperienced, Tony bowed in respect and said, "Of course, Your Majesty. Thank you for rounding them up for us; we were prepared to do it, but your assistance is greatly appreciated."

The now-detained group of Rogues all angrily cried out behind their thick gags, only to be summarily ignored by literally everyone, which only pissed them off more.

Ramonda just smiled thinly at Tony and gestured to their jet. "We are pleased to have been of service but we do not wish to delay you any longer. Clearance to leave has naturally been granted, but Dr. Stark?"

He gave her a long look, face inscrutable, before asking, "Yes?"

"Do not deviate from the flight plan you have been provided. What happened today was necessary, but we will not be so amenable to any additional . . . antics."

The threat was clear, so it surprised them all when Tony just chuckled. "Of course, Queen Ramonda. We wouldn't dream of it. Thank you again for your assistance and I hope our next meeting isn't quite so . . . impromptu."

"Indeed," Ramonda drily replied. "Have a safe journey."

Without another word, she turned around and made her way regally into the palace, her steps measured and imperious. She was clearly furious and needed only a single raised eyebrow to summon her children to her side. The subsequent blistering lectures would have peeled linoleum from the floor, if the Wakandan palace had possessed such cheap material. And after a very, thorough investigation into not just Stark's claims about the country's technology deficiencies, but also the circumstances that led T'Challa to something as stupid as offering sanctuary to Barnes and allowing Rogers to railroad him, the Dowager Queen of Wakanda dropped 'dowager' from her title and claimed the throne until her children had not just proven themselves capable of ruling, but had also earned the respect and approval of their people.

T'Challa would spend the next two years training in multiple roles, both in leading and following, by learning different skills from several mid-level figures around the globe, as Wakanda's status wasn't high enough to warrant top-tier leaders. His experience serving as an aide for countries as small as Sri Lanka and as big as China did more to beat the arrogance out of him than losing a thousand battles would have, though it knocked him for a major loop when he saw how a good leader wasn't afraid or ashamed to take direction from people who knew better. His father had trained him well, yes . . . but without actual experience, training is of little help, and learning on the job isn't the best way to rule a country. And very few countries were tribal monarchies the way Wakanda was, so the way they did business was utterly unfamiliar to the young king. When he finally returned home, this time to go through a second round of classes and instruction on the best ways to rule Wakanda, his manner and bearing were so different, people didn't recognize him.

But it worked: he finally grasped that one could not be an effective leader or earn loyalty unless he was willing to give such in return, and always remain aware that even in a monarchy, a king was not all-knowing simply because he was king — and he could not rule alone.

Meanwhile, Shuri, having been rejected from MIT to her eternal shock, entered Stanford the following semester to learn her craft without the advantage of vibranium or the protected atmosphere of her home, where she had been coddled and never bested or even doubted. The first thing she learned was that no one cared that she was a princess; partying and having fun was fun, but only if it didn't interfere with their work (engineers are an intense bunch, and utterly unlike any other group on campus). The second thing she discovered was that she knew nothing about life, especially in the outside world. And the third thing she learned was that her sneering, more-than-a-little-condescending thoughts about Tony Stark's abilities were so wrong, her professor laughed herself into an asthma attack.

Yes, Stark was arrogant and uncompromising about his intellect and abilities, but even the people who hated him acknowledged he had the right to be. Universities that specialized in computer science and any form of engineering dedicated at least one full semester to the man and his inventions. At the end of her fourth day of classes, Shuri returned to her private, off-campus apartment, curled up on her bed, and cried. She was gifted, yes, something that was readily acknowledge by her peers and professors . . . but she was also untrained, inexperienced, biased, and, robbed of vibranium, much too arrogant given the aforementioned faults. She had also shoved both feet so far in her mouth that she would be gagging on her shoes for days. She couldn't even build a decent standard alarm clock using readily-obtainable materials and her protests that at home, she could produce a working grandfather clock, complete with elegant design, had been met with sneers and laughter and the rather mocking reminder that vibranium wasn't freely available to the world outside Wakanda, princess, so she was going to have to slum it with the rest of them.

It was a drastic learning curve for the royals, and more than a little traumatic, and they were humbled and embarrassed more than a few times along the way. But they learned. More importantly, they learned well.

Sadly, that could not be said for Steve Rogers. After losing his trial in a truly epic fashion, where his defense consisted of, in no particular order: claiming that Wanda wanting revenge on Tony for the death of her parents via a bomb she thought was his but had no actual proof of that being true was completely different both from Peter blaming her for actually killing his parents, after torturing them for HYRDA, and Tony's selfishness in attacking Bucky in the heat of the moment and refusing to see that Bucky hadn't meant to murder the Starks, it had been HYRDA. He also declared that Tony's violent response on seeing the video justified his decision not to tell him the truth about his parents, and aside from that, Tony was so childish and so desperate to be the center of attention that Steve didn't dare contact him when HYRDA's infiltration of SHIELD had been discovered, or even ask him to ground the helicarriers, because he would have bragged that he saved everyone instead of Steve, which would have defeated the purpose of giving Steve the mission to destroy HYDRA.

He never once realized that he failed in that mission.

When the defense rested, the jury set the world's third shortest record for a verdict, and most of that 17 minutes was due to assigning a foreman and getting the voting process set up in an officially-allowed format.

Rogers spent the 62 years he was in solitary confinement ranting about the corrupt governments who had imprisoned him to hide their own crimes, decrying Wanda's conviction and punishment, proclaiming Bucky's innocence, spewing justifications for his own actions, and denouncing Tony as a selfish puppet for the corrupt Accords. Despite being offered multiple opportunities to learn, he rejected every single one of them, before finally dying alone and ignorant. His team wasn't much better. Lang made a plea deal before they got off the plane and Barton followed suit two years later, though he still privately cursed Tony's name, before and after his wife divorced him and his oldest child literally spit in his face before walking away. Romanova and Wilson got the same sentence as Rogers, albeit not as long, but when they were released 31 years (Wilson) and 40 years (Romanova) later, they also both cursed Tony Stark's name (which would have amused him to no end, had he known; he'd long since forgotten about them, aside from the rare mention in passing).

But when it was all said and done, even if they never fully understood the true meaning of the sentiment, Steve Rogers, Wanda Maximoff, T'Challa, and Shuri learned the perils and dangers of underestimating not just Tony Stark, but the people who loved him.

Surprise.

~~~
fin