Being confronted at 8am in the morning before I even had my cup of breakfast by a spider mutant was not how I wanted to start my third day in Wakanda.
"Ms. Gomez," Peter whispered as he tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, which considering the odd looks we were getting was not working, "Can I speak to you in private please."
"Peter, call me Aliana for heaven's sake," I groaned, "And can this wait till after coffee?"
Peter handed me a cup full of milk coffee, looking at me way too intensely. I slowly took a sip of it and moaned, it was perfect, "All right, let's go for a walk shall we?" I smiled at him and led him out of the room, shaking my head at Tony's raised eyebrow.
* * *
"Why are you having secret meetings with the king?" Peter asked, causing me to choke on my coffee.
"What?" Peter looked down at his feet but took a deep breath and gave me a firm look.
"I saw you the first night, when the warrior women came to get you to go meet him." What the fuck was he doing up at that time? "And then yesterday you met with him before going into the portal thing, which I also have a lot of questions on. Then again last night you came out of his room."
What the fuck? Since when did he turn into a spy?
"Aliana," Peter said in a low voice, "Are you... Having an affair?"
Quickly waving my hands around, I shook my head, "No, what? Peter, absolutely not. Look, me and T'Challa go way back and he's been helping me with some problems I have."
At that Peter's shoulders relaxed and he took a step back, "That's good. I really don't know what I would've done if you were cheating on Mr. Stark. I mean, all of your mates are good people and they really don't deserve that, you know?"
"Yeah, Peter." I said, "They are good men. I would never hurt them. Thanks for coming to ask me before doing anything."
Peter gave me his cute little smile that I knew had Wade wrapped around his fingers. Talking about Wade, I wonder how he was. After dropping me off at the Tower he had pretty much disappeared and I haven't talked to him since.
"By the way, how is Wade doing? Have you heard from him lately?"
Peter blushed a deep red and nodded, "I talked to him yesterday. He's fine, apparently he started a new job at a karaoke bar that's also a drug dealing front. I think there was something about a cult too."
Welp, that sounds around right.
Wanting to ask a lot more questions, I took another sip of my coffee but right at that time Shuri burst into the room.
"Aliana, I need you to come blast some things." Peter and I both looked up in shock, not expecting the Princess of Wakanda to come find us in a small closet. Which yes, we had gone into a small supply closet that we had found in the hallway.
"Who are you?" Shuri gave Peter the most indignant look.
"Peter Parker. Nice to meet you, your majesty." He managed to stammered out. Shuri gave a devilish smirk and proceeded to grab both of our wrist.
"Come, I think you will like what I have been working on."
That was how Peter and I found ourselves in Shuri's lab staring at the new Black Panther outfit.
"Whoah." Peter said as he looked at the line up of suits. Shuri had the biggest shit eating grin, seeming to absorb Peter's awe like a sponge.
"Shuri, is this really something you should be showing Peter?" Peter gave me a small glare, "No offense."
Shuri scoffed, walking around the suits, "This is Tony Stark's personal intern and your unofficial child. The most dangerous thing about him is how he sneaks around the castle and manages to avoid my cameras. How do you do that, by the way?"
Peter began to imitate a fish opening and closing his mouth with no sound coming out. Sighing, I closed his mouth and sent Shuri a smile, "Don't worry about it. Now, what do you need me to do?"
* * *
An hour later after having sent blast after blast at the new Black Panther suit, Peter and Shuri had gotten talking and gotten along like a house on fire. Currently they had started designing a brand new gun that shot lasers that would apparently work like the one from some science fiction movie or the other.
As they laughed over their design and talked details about how to improve it I wondered if it had been a mistake to introduce two child geniuses together.
"Well, what's the worst that could happen?" I asked myself as I walked away to lunch, hoping to see my men.
That question was answered the very next day when during our meeting I looked outside the meeting room window which looked into the hallway. There was Peter wearing a mask and shooting at Shuri with his laser gun.
A real working laser gun.
I nudged Tony with my elbow for him to look at the epic battle going on outside. He gave me a look to which I shook my head and discreetly pointed outside. When he saw what was happening his eyes almost bulged out of his head, but he tried very hard to keep his composure.
T'Challa noticed our exchange and I tilted my head to the action going on outside, which Peter was winning. T'Challa looked shocked for a second but just had a very exhausted look on his face. Then he proceeded to ignore everything happening and focused on the meeting.
I decided that that was indeed the correct course of action and proceeded to ignore Peter and Shuri who I could no longer see. After all, if they break anything I am not the one that's going to be paying for it.