"You were meant to meet me in New York," Shuri tells T'Challa lightly as she steps off of her jet, "And yet, I am in New York and you are not."

"Yeah, I'm sorry," T'Challa sounds exhausted, "I'll be there to see Fashion Week with you, I promise. Just... stay put for a week or so?"

"You're not forgiven," Shuri cocks an eyebrow, "Where am I supposed to stay?"

T'Challa rolls his eyes at that, "Oh, no. A princess with loads of money, in a place with lots of hotels. Whatever shall you do."

"I'm serious, brother," Shuri puts a hand on her hips, "What about my tools? You promised me a temporary lab in New York."

T'Challa sounds surprised, "I did?"

"Yes," How utterly like him to promise something and forget about it, "When I was talking about the upgrades to your suit?"

That glazed over look crosses T'Challa's eyes, and Shuri groans. Of course, he was blanking out again.

"You brought this upon yourself," Shuri points out.

"I love you," T'Challa says weakly.

"Loser," Shuri blows him a kiss, "I want a lab before I see your stupid face again."

"You're impossible," T'Challa says.

"Love you, too," Shuri sing songs.

T'Challa gets her a lab.

Of course, he does, Shuri really should never have doubted him.

Her escort comes in the form of a tall redhead and the redhead's sleazy looking date.

"Princess," The sleaze says, smiling sharply at her with whitened teeth. She can't see his eyes, they're covered by mirrored lenses.

"Stark," She answers with an unimpressed stare, "What's up with the sunglasses? It's not that bright outside. Or is it just one of your American things?"

She's heard enough of the infamous Tony Stark to know that she's to keep conversation to a minimum and take over his lab as quickly as possible. If she can suck his brain, all the better, but she doubts that she can find it buried beneath the ego that practically drips from his thousand dollar haircut to his admittedly fashionable shoes.

"It's a Tony thing," The tall redhead seems unimpressed by the airs that Stark is putting on, smiling one of the smiles that T'Challa makes when he meets with the ruler of another country, "I do apologize for you having to deal with him, Princess Shuri. I'm Pepper Potts, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Shuri shakes her hand, and laughs, "I'm sixteen, I'm not much for politics."

Ms. Potts keeps her polite smile all the same, and something about Stark's smile becomes begrudgingly interested.

To be completely honest, Shuri doesn't quite know what she expects Tony Stark's state of the art labs to look like. She knows that the outside world's technology is primitive, to say the least, but this is also the man behind the Iron Man suit, so it can't be all bad, she tells herself.

And it's not that bad.

Totally stone age.

But not bad.

She tells so to Stark, pulling her hair up into a ponytail, "It will need complete redecorating," Shuri muses, "But we can handle that."

"Alright, princess," There's something amused in Stark's voice, "Knock yourself out."

Despite what T'Challa and the news have told her about Stark having a general disposition towards rubbing people the wrong way, Shuri has found that Stark slides easily into conversations, speaking to others as though he's known them for ages instead of two seconds.

"Oh," Shuri bares her teeth into a smile, "I will be sure to do so."

He shoots her a slightly worried stare, before just shaking his head and sighing.

The door slides open and a boy pokes his head in, nose stuck in a book, "Hey, Mr. Stark, so I was reconfiguring the..." he stops and stares at Shuri, staring at her with wide eyes and then looking around the room. "You're not Mr. Stark," he says weakly.

"No, I'm not," Shuri agrees, "And you're not T'Challa."

"Black Panther?" The boy squeaks, "You know the Black Panther?"

"I should," Shuri says loftily, "That idiot's my brother."

The boy makes a noise as though he may be dying, "That means that you're... you're..."

Shuri frowns at him, "You're not seriously keeping the door open, are you? Come in already, I don't want any shrapnel flying outside of this room."

"Right," He shuffles in awkwardly, and then asks, "Do you know where I can find Mr. Stark?"

"No," Shuri shrugs, "Not sorry."

He smiles shyly at her, "Okay. Well, thanks any- whoa, is that an expanding suit?"

Shuri smirks smugly and pulls one of her prototypes for T'Challa's new suit off of the mannequin, "Oh, this?" She asks innocently, "Just a little something something that I made."

He has stars in his eyes, "That's so cool!"

"Yeah, I know," Shuri flips her hair over her shoulder, "I'm pretty awesome."

"You really are," he agrees.

Shuri laughs and holds out her hand, "I'm Shuri, nice to meet you."

"Oh, right, I'm, um," The boy glances at the door, and then back at Shuri, shakes her hand, and rubs the back of his neck. "Peter. It's nice to meet you."

A/n: Probably won't abandon it here, but no promises.