#pantherqueen

these gfs are on their way to get crepes! 💞

52. Marriage of Convenience and 60. Poorly Timed Confession 

Ohhh!

How about Toni and T’Challa who are married as an attempt to promote and encourage Wakanda’s entry into the outside world.

Only it’s a disaster.

Because Toni’s the one who has to give a lot of ground and move to Wakanda and it’s not her home and there’s more than one person who is ready and willing to make sure she knows that.

And she tries to get along with T’Challa and everyone else and there’s a few successes here and there but, overall, she’s miserable.

In the end, after a lot of back and forth, divorce is the only option with Toni stepping up and saying that she’ll take the blame for the marriage failing, that all T’Challa has to do is step back and not protest and the world will believe her.

Toni’s self esteem is, inherently and not healthily, based on the people in her life.  Rhodey and JARVIS in particular have helped her to rebuild herself bit by bit.  Striving to be the best and most at what she does is one part spite and one part pride.

I do think Toni would have some insecurities going into a relationship with T’Challa.  But, to be fair, Toni would have insecurities going into a relationship with anyone.

With T’Challa Toni would never hold him having a good life against him.  She’s not that kind of person, not really.  But, like always, she’d have issues that trace back to her belief that she’s an inherently bad person, is so much bad code.  It would be hard for her to believe that T’Challa could want her when she has nothing to offer him in return.

He doesn’t need her money, her tech, her influence.  Any of that. And the idea of finding someone who truly wants her for her is something Toni sees as too good to be true.

She got so so lucky with Rhodey, and then later on with Pepper and Happy in a different way, that she can’t imagine someone wanting her romantically without there being a catch.

Look Toni and Shuri, after a moment or two of posturing and some adjustments as they feel each other out, would get on like a house on fire.

Cause they could meet each other as equals in a way that very few people have been able to with either of them.  Shuri is a genius and actual royalty and Toni is a genius and basically American royalty.  They’d click over a lot of different issues.

Rhodey and T’Challa are simultaneously proud and terrified.  Cause yeah they’re both geniuses too and scientists in their own right but, let’s be real here, when Toni and Shuri get together people start running for cover.

Like once they’re comfortable together I imagine it’d be a lot of mad cackling, explosions, and innovative tech spewing out left, right ,and center.

T’Challa’s smitten, Rhodey’s half smitten at this point, the Dora are amused and exasperated by turns.

I’d say a nice mix of both but no matter what he maintains the most important aspect of how he treats her and that is acceptance.

Trust.

I feel like T’Challa would be understanding of Toni in this AU in a lot of ways the others aren’t/can’t/won’t be.  He understands the pressure and stress of running an empire/kingdom, understands the stress of being held accountable for every action, of being under scrutiny on such a large degree.

He understands what it means to lose oneself in vengeance and how a loss of control can impact someone who works so hard for that control.