InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "then it fell out he window"

ｐａｎｔｈｅｒ (kingly) wrote in avengers_logs,
@ 2021-11-01 15:45:00

Entry tags:

-backdated, -complete, kate bishop, t'challa

Who: Hawkeye and Black Panther
What: Pizza and movies
When: Sat, Oct 30
Where: Kate’s apartment
Warning: None!
Status: Complete

This was one of those things that Kate never imagined herself doing. Before she’d arrived here in this weird, alternate reality (where Billy and Tommy were children?) she had barely heard of Wakanda. And now she’d invited the King of Wakanda over to her place for pizza and a movie? The fuck was she thinking??

Not that she’d chicken out. T’Challa seemed pretty awesome on the network, even though Kate hadn’t actually met him face to face yet. He seemed to be a pretty great combination of light-hearted and serious, though he also seemed to be a bit of a workaholic. No fun activities on the weekends? Come now.

So she ordered two different kinds of pizza (she’d have leftovers for days), coffees for the both of them, and then queued up Netflix so they could find a movie they both wanted to watch. Kate loved Halloween movies. She was good with whatever he wanted to do.

This was certainly the first time T’Challa had been invited for pizza and a movie someplace - at least, the first time that he could recall. Something new, then - though he found it amusing that the only time he ate junk food was when he was on this side of the world; people in Wakanda had extraordinarily long lifespans, which was due to the advancements of medicine and technology but also the fact that no fast food existed in the country at all. You would not find a McDonald’s or a KFC, not within those borders. Food was fresh, animals were happy and well-cared for, meat seasoned with herbs from the northern slopes where the Jabari tribe resided - plus their mountain goats helped provide excellent dairy. Shrimp and fish came from the River tribe, and rice from the southern Alkama fields - things were often cooked in coconut oil and ghee, not necessarily doused with a whole stick of butter.

Pizza was - well, it did not really exist in Wakanda. So of course T’Challa was curious. He’d had it before, of course, but not necessarily the kind Kate was talking about. Though he usually wore Afropunk designs rooted in tradition, when he went to the Tower he wore a sleek black suit, a dinner jacket with a bit of a gloss and sheen to it. Kind of a match to his panther habit, which also shimmered (and which he always maintained a mental link to, so he could change into it whenever necessary). In his hands he carried a dish of kelewele, which he hoped would go well with pizza. They were sweet and savory spiced fried plantains, essentially.

To Kate’s assigned apartment then. He knocked politely on the door rather than simply barging in.

Kate answered the door only a couple of moments after he knocked. At the sight of him, she felt severely underdressed: barefoot in faded jeans ripped stylishly at the knee, a white hoodie with purple cuffs on the sleeves, a purple tank top that was faded underneath. Her hair was in a sloppy bun and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d put on any makeup. Yes, severely underdressed. But she wore a winning grin, anyway.

“Hi! What’d you bring me? It smells delicious.” She pulled back the door and stepped to the side so he could come into her apartment. (She did this without technically inviting him in… just in case he was, in fact, a vampire.)

As luck would have it, T’Challa was not a vampire - he was able to cross the threshold easily, stepping into the apartment. He cared little about makeup or even hair that wasn’t a mess - he was simply happy to be here, to get to do something ‘fun’ for once. It usually wasn’t on his agenda - not with so many meetings and travel, so much overseeing of not only the neighboring tribes but the War Dogs as well; he was the King of and Protector of Wakanda, and while he certainly couldn’t do it alone it also didn’t leave much time for recreation.

“It’s a version of fried plantains,” he replied grandly, setting the dish down on the coffee table - if this was the spread, it looked (and smelled) inviting. “A dish native to Wakanda. I would have brought wine but I wasn’t sure if you drank any or not.” If there was interest, well, he’d know for next time.

Kate actually breathed out a gentle sigh of relief when he came through the doorway without getting caught by the invisible keep out, Vampire! barrier. She was ridiculous, NGL. But she was both ridiculous and relieved as she closed the door behind him and followed him further into the apartment.

“Ah, drinks. Well, I grabbed coffee? I don’t know what kind of wine pairs with pizza. Maybe red?” She was still in the college student phase of her life where she was doing ridiculous things with her drink--mixing red wine and Coke? *barf*--but she was raised in a household where they appreciated the finer things in life. She knew a good wine when she tasted one, she knew a Verdi opera from a Wagner opera, she summered in the Hamptons, and all that. But when she removed herself from her father’s influence, all that fell apart. She became a ramen-as-a-staple-in-the-diet kind of girl, pinching pennies and living paycheck to paycheck. Someone who asked her about wine? It was a refreshing change.

“Maybe next time,” she offered him a smile, then motioned to the sofa. “Take a seat. We can pick a movie and get this party started.”

“Because of the tomato sauce, yes, I would assume a red wine,” T’Challa agreed. “Though if it is a...dessert pizza?” Because that was a thing that existed. Bast, what an invention. “Perhaps a white. I will be sure to bring some made in Wakanda, next time. This all looks very nice, by the way,” he motioned to the general vicinity of pizza and coffee.

He liked coffee just fine - it went well with everything, didn’t it? Most everything. Settling on the sofa, he leaned forward and removed the lid from the dish he’d brought - that just made the plantains smell that much sweeter. “It is a Halloween movie we are supposed to pick, yes? Do you have recommendations?”

If not, he assumed Netflix would. They were quite handy about categorizing their movie selections.

“I’m not huge on dessert pizzas,” Kate said, giving a gentle shrug of her shoulders. “But I imagine they’d be better with a dry white wine,” with a little grin, she leaned forward to start piling food onto a plate. There was one for T’Challa, too. See? She could be posh. Ceramic plates and everything.

“I love all of them. Depends, do you like scary movies? Or do you like family-friendly movies? Comedies? I can find something you’ll enjoy. That we’ll both enjoy.” It was kinda fun hanging out with a king. Kate didn’t know him at all in her world--could barely point out Wakanda on a map, really--so she’d had to Google him in this one. And she was a little surprised that she’d invited a king to pizza and a movie.

Ceramic plates, how fancy indeed. T’Challa wouldn’t have minded eating from the box, like a true heathen, but he was good with actual eating surfaces too. He was also glad there were napkins (or he spotted paper towels, anyway) because pizza was often greasy - fold the slice correctly and it dripped grease, or at least, it had in New York. He was positive that there was some unspoken competition between the regions involving pizza - perhaps bagels too.

“I think, in recognition of the season, an actual scary movie might be fun?” he suggested, picking up his slice of pizza to take a bite. It was good - just as good as on the east coast, even if he was not very picky or discerning about the crust nuances and such. “I do not scare easily so there’s nothing that I might jump over. Do you scare easily?”

There were paper napkins on the coffee table. They had “Happy Halloween!” and a dancing skeleton with a jack-o-lantern for a head on them. They were fantastic and gaudy and Kate couldn’t help but buy two packs. (She’d probably still be using them for New Years.)

“You’d think with all the time I’ve spent dealing with traumatic and scary things, I’d be used to it by now, but… well, the jump scares really get to me. But yes, I think we should turn the lights off and watch something really scary.” Kate loved a good scare. “What do you think? I’ve heard that Hereditary is really scary, and I haven’t seen it yet.”

Considering that T’Challa spent zero amounts of time trying to terrify himself with various films, well, he was in the dark about this one (no pun intended). “My sister watches a lot more movies than me - she liked to watch them with our father,” he said. “His favorite was Back to the Future. The idea and execution of the flying car was...very funny.” But that series of films certainly wasn’t scary - unless you counted the fashion, or what people thought was fashionable in the year 2015.

“So if you say that one is scary, I say we go for it,” he nodded sagely. “What is it about?”

“Back to the Future is really good,” Kate grinned. “I watched that one with Clint. Well, my Clint. I don’t think there’s a Clint in this world.” And even if a Clint showed up here, she wasn’t sure it would be the Clint that she knew, anyway. It was kind of a bummer, missing her best friend… but she was making new friends here. Like Kings from Wakanda and centenarians who need serious education when it comes to pop culture.

“Okay!” Kate picked up the remote and her pizza plate and settled back on the sofa to click through menus until she found the one she was looking for. “It’s about this family that has experienced a loss--I think the grandmother died?--but then really strange shi--er… stuff starts happening. Turns out that Grandma left behind… well, I’m not entirely sure. We’ll have to watch it and find out?”

There used to be a Clint, from what T’Challa recalled - but that had been awhile ago and any current Clint cause in this bubble universe was not privy to the mechanics of how it all worked. Nor would he recognize Kate, which was quite sad - or at least, T’Challa didn’t think so.

Stranger things had happened, he supposed.

“Some strange shit?” he helped her out, chuckling. Nice that she felt like she needed to censor herself for the sake of his prim and proper ears (ha) but it really was not necessary. “Sounds delightful. Let’s see what happens, then.” The only thing that would likely be really scary to him would be the primitive tech shown in the movie (like most movies - Wakanda had always been light years ahead in that regard) but he’d find out.

A new adventure. He did appreciate those.