T'Challa and Nolan

[ax_herald]

A second meeting, this time fantasy-free.


Nolan didn't spend as much time in Xavier's kitchen as he used to, these days. Tessa's departure had put an end to his weekly cooking dates with her, and the launch in September had broken him out of his previous routine at Xavier's. He now spent more time in the City, and consequently had less opportunity to be here.

But, in the absence of visions, the main thing bringing him back to Xavier's for longer than his training sessions with the Professor was, of course, his beautiful, amazing, glorious boyfriend. And tonight, Nolan was cooking something for the two of them, a shrimp risotto Shaun had particularly enjoyed last time Nolan had made it.

He had just started adding the stock to the rice, stirring as it was absorbed, when someone walked into the kitchen. Nolan's smile was faint and dry, but genuinely amused, as he remarked, in his usual soft snark, "I feel as if I should be wearing robes for this."

Instead, he was in printed trousers and a brown v-neck sweater, very much dressed down.

The truth was that T'Challa was not very used to doing his own cooking. He had learned a handful of simple meals, because Mother had insisted when he was about Shuri's age that a king who could not manage to feed himself in a pinch would not be much respected, and she was right in saying so. Goat or beef, greens and veg, rice, lentils, pasta, peppers, onions and plantains - those were things he could always throw together. And when in doubt about what a dish needed? It was almost certainly more spices or a handful of chopped nuts.

He was decidedly better versed in the eating of fine food. So when he came into the kitchen to scrounge for dinner after his studying, he could not help but be curious about the decadently rich, buttery smell in the air and the contents of Nolan's pan, pausing to look at what was going on in there after acknowledging the other boy.

"Do you think it would it be more or less difficult to get flecks of oil and butter out of a wizard's dress robes compared to casual couture?" He tried to remember more about the materials the wizard garments had been sewn from, but his memories of that time seemed indistinct around the edges, dream-like. T'Challa clearly did know something about clothes, his own outfit no less posh for its seeming simplicity.

"I think I used to know just the cantrip to make it child's play either way," Nolan replied dryly, still stirring the risotto and sparing a thought for the aprons he had at home. There was a chopping board in the sink, waiting to be washed, and a saucepan of stock he would be regularly using now, as well as a few more ingredients waiting to be added later on - shrimp, butter, lemon and mascarpone. "Risotto," he added helpfully, since T'Challa seemed interested in the contents of the pot.

T'Challa glanced at the ingredients, understanding those and risotto well enough. It was the other thing that Nolan had said that he wasn't sure about. "What is a 'cantrip'?"

"A type of spell," Nolan answered, leaning a hip against the counter to face T'Challa, even as he kept an eye on the contents of the pot, and occasionally stirred them. That allowed him to finally take in the prince's outfit - and appreciate it. T'Challa wore it well. "A minor spell. Very easy to use, and so simple it hardly costs any energy casting."

Remembering that Ororo had been connected to nature through magic in that alternate realm, T'Challa wondered if she had her own cantrips.

"Yorkland was...a very strange analog for our world," T'Challa took his time in saying. "Some things were very similar to how they are in this world. Others were not. You do not know these cantrips anymore, but perhaps they relate to your real life in some way?"

"Replace magic with tech," Nolan offered easily. It was a simple metaphor, but it still worked. The fact that he had had an affinity for divination spells was deeply ironic, of course, but he was not going to share that with just anyone. Prince or no prince. "Now, none of my tech is geared towards stain-removal, but I'm choosing not to view it as business advice."

T'Challa quirked his lips at the wryness of it. "You have technological abilities, then?" It made sense given Nolcorp's success.

"I think the whole world knows that," Nolan replied, quirking a dry smile at T'Challa. Not mutant abilities, of course, but he trusted someone as necessarily diplomatic as Prince T'Challa of Wakanda to respect the evasion for what it was, and Nolan reached for the stock to add more to the rice.

"Spoken like a widely acknowledged genius." His tone was soft enough, and T'Challa's expression wasn't pointed. It wasn't intended as catty, so much as plain speaking. This school was home to many incredibly brilliant, successful, and influential individuals, to say nothing of their powers. He left the rice to Nolan's own supervision and went to see what the refrigerator had been supplied with. "How do you find running your business empire from a private school?"

Nolan's eyebrows raised slightly at the term empire. He wasn't quite there yet; give him another couple of years. (He was going to get another couple of years.)

"It's been... interesting," he replied honestly. "Fortunately, the Professor's allowed me the freedom I needed to make it work. I've had to learn to delegate more than I cared to - but I also found someone I wouldn't mind delegating the technical aspects to here. Kitty Pryde?" He wasn't certain how much T'Challa followed business news, if at all.

Nolcorp was an international company that must be worth twenty billion dollars after only a handful of years, not a quaint startup. And Nolan Ross wasn't even in his twenties. If calling such a dramatically developing enterprise an 'empire' was an exaggeration, T'Challa did not think it was a very great exaggeration.

"One of the other budding geniuses? I have not met her yet," T'Challa turned back to say before rooting around in the fridge.

"I'm only sad your sister had to leave before the two of them could meet," Nolan confirmed easily. He expected Princess Shuri to be just as gifted in real life as she had been in Yorkland. "Give them a few hours together and count the technological breakthroughs."

Kale, onion, tomato - T'Challa collected things into the crook of his arm. "Between you and me, keeping my sister on a single set class schedule was never going to happen. She doesn't do anything the easiest way." He glanced back at Nolan, smiling a bit anyway. "But she will be back once she's got her latest pet projects out of her system."

"I'm still holding out for that meeting of the minds," Nolan confirmed with a small quirk of his lips. Whether or not Princess Shuri made it back, it would absolutely have to happen.

"I have been wondering what the Xavier's graduates go on to do from here," T'Challa went to wash the fresh ingredients in the sink. "Particularly all of these young, restless geniuses. I don't imagine them going off to work quiet desk jobs, but not all of them want to run their own company like yourself. Kitty Pryde is one example, but I understand there are others."

"There are very few graduates right now," Nolan acknowledged, reaching to add a little more stock to the rice. "I think this year will see the first real wave of them." It was going to be interesting, although his own curiosity focused more sharply on one among them.

T'Challa turned to look over at him more directly. "From what I have seen so far, most students seem very attached to the school. What can you tell me about your experiences here?"

"Nothing that would tell you much about student experiences," Nolan replied honestly. He wasn't one, after all. "But it's certainly been new, socializing with people my own age again - although I haven't done much of it." Between his busy schedule and his reluctance to get out there and mingle, it was a miracle he'd done any socializing at all. Shaun and he probably wouldn't be an item if Shaun hadn't sought Nolan out, especially given when that had happened.

"You didn't attend classes at Xavier's?" T'Challa put himself to work at a cutting board out of Nolan's way, where he set to finely chopping his vegetables. It hardly surprised him if Nolan had already graduated. But it did surprise him a bit that there were non-students and non-alumni in residence.

"I graduated high school at 14," Nolan confirmed, mildly surprised that T'Challa would not know this. If he had been in the prince's shoes, he would have done research on the Yorkland wizard now tech billionaire at the school, and that much was common knowledge. (Nolan had certainly done research on Wakanda himself - up until their remarkable firewalls stopped him.) Then again, maybe T'Challa was pretending. Or maybe he trusted other people to worry about things like this. Not everyone was as much of a control freak as Nolan. "There weren't any classes to attend here at the time, I believe."

"I don't imagine that high school posed much of a challenge for you," T'Challa said while considering Shuri's circumstances as well as his own. He had looked into Nolcorp, after all. He also knew better than many that it was one thing to read the official statements about something, and another to know them firsthand. Things were not always as they seemed. "But I am curious how you came to be at a specialized school for mutants if it had nothing to do with your education."

"That only leaves one possible option," Nolan remarked, putting the last of the stock into the rice. "Professor Xavier's been helping me with my mutation," he elaborated, and very much failed to provide any details about said mutation, or the nature of the help in question. "So I divide my time between here and the City. Fortunately, having a teleporting friend makes the commute easier."

It was clearly the likeliest option. But T'Challa's imagination was greater than the most obvious answer.

"It is the real reason why most of us are here, isn't it?" he said simply, noting the hesitance to specify or elaborate and respecting it as he went back to the refrigerator for some beef he had seen inside.

"To start with, anyway," Nolan acknowledged. And only most of them.

It seemed very few around Xavier's were free and forthright with what they would tell a newcomer. It wasn't entirely unexpected, given the clandestine nature of the school and the very public lives some of the students continued to lead that didn't always include their mutant status and affiliations. But he certainly noted those reservations when he found them.

"Do you also disdain high society here, the way you said you did in Yorkland?"

If Nolan was mildly surprised by the change of topic, he didn't let that trouble him. He hummed thoughtfully, his mind going back to that other life. "Disdain, love to navigate, yes, both," he confirmed, dryly.

It had been a deliberate shift, but it wasn't unrelated. It seemed like a subject Nolan had been more willing to discuss, for one. And for another- "It's business," T'Challa shrugged a shoulder as he unwrapped the package of meat and gave it a good rinse. "People want to know who they are doing business with."

"Is that your take on high society?" Nolan asked curiously, still stirring his rice. There was a lot more to it than that, in his opinion. People also wanted to know who their competition was - and more than just business competition.

If T'Challa had had any lingering doubt as to if Nolan was a navigator of such circles before, it was dispelled now. It was in the way Nolan sparred and dodged as he spoke. "I would very much like to hear your take," he proposed.

"Come to a Hamptons party with me some time," Nolan offered, in true evasive-yet-not Nolan fashion. He gave T'Challa a small, soft-dry smile. "Show is so much better than tell."

Never mind that it would be a very informative evening not just for T'Challa, that way. Nolan was curious how the Wakandan prince might navigate that kind of evening himself. And of course, it would be entertaining to see what Hampton society might make of Nolan's guest.

T'Challa glanced over his shoulder at Nolan. "Is that a genuine offer? Or just another polite deflection?"

"A genuine offer," Nolan answered without missing a beat, "which serves as a deflection." He turned to season the risotto with salt and pepper, then reached for the shrimp.

T'Challa found himself missing Wakanda. Although his people certainly had intrigues and catty back and forth of their own, they did place great value on speaking their hearts and minds more directly. "You are not an easy person to know, are you Nolan Ross?"

Not past his Wikipedia page, no. Nolan smiled to himself as he stirred the shrimp in. "Call it a byproduct of my early ascension to the ranks of high society." That was only part of it, of course, but he was not an easy person to know. "What about you, Prince T'Challa? How easy are you to know?"

"Touché." T'Challa found a pan and set it on one of the other stovetops, turning on the heat. "It's not that I won't talk about myself," he added as he gave it some thought, moving to get some oil. "But perhaps you are right in that actions can often speak better than words."

It was impossible not to notice how much this conversation mirrored their first meeting, in Yorkland. It was that awareness that colored Nolan's small smile with an added layer of dry amusement. Curiosity, and reserve. "As it is, I'm looking forward to both words and actions, when it comes to our acquaintance," he stated, needing very little on his focus for the risotto at this stage, as he stepped back to make room for T'Challa at the stovetop, but kept stirring. "I hope you'll consider visiting in the Hamptons some day."

"I might do that," T'Challa told him, pouring the oil. He was just as curious, if for different reasons. "What do you get up to in the Hamptons?"

"What every young socialite is supposed to, for once," Nolan replied, perfectly honestly, this time. There was no evasion; this was an easy question to answer. "Enjoy my pool, enjoy the beach, go shopping, attend parties... It's a good place to relax, that last activity notwithstanding."

"The American equivalent of royalty at play," T'Challa mused as he set the meat to browning with some garlic and the onions, mindful to keep out of Nolan's way. He turned on the fan, in case anyone was not a fan of onions.

"Nobility, at least," Nolan agreed. "I don't go as often as I'd like, but it's a good getaway."

"Do you take a lot of people with you on these trips?" A good getaway... T'Challa wondered as he glanced over the sizzling beef at Nolan if Ororo would enjoy something like that. He had taken her nice places before, and she had accepted the luxury gracefully, but without coming to expect the next extravagance as a matter of course. It was refreshing to have her company in such places, really, when at the end of the day she didn't care at all if somebody had a bigger boat or more likes on Instagram.

"A few," Nolan answered, glancing at T'Challa. "And I've been known to throw a party myself, when the occasion called for it." Never mind that he hadn't done so since manifesting, save for Shaun's birthday bash. Hamptonites had most definitely not been invited to that one, however. "I'm probably due for another one some time this spring, before people start thinking I've lost my edge."

"Would that be your occasion? Staying relevant?" T'Challa spread a playful smile at him. It would be practically impossible for an entrepreneur with so much early success to lose the interest of the public overnight. Nolcorp aside, high-profile young people like him were the personification of what their entire generation cared about, and that had great value towards determining future commercial success.

Nolan's lips quirked into a genuinely amused smile, eyes shining with it as he cast another, approving glance at T'Challa. "That, and I can't in good conscience let the Graysons monopolize the Hamptons party scene forever."

"I see tribal politics are as alive and well here as they are in Wakanda," T'Challa stirred the contents of his pan and added the finely chopped tomatoes.

"Socialites have to have their fun," Nolan answered lightly. The shrimp looked good, so he removed the pan from the stovetop and shifted aside, leaving T'Challa more room to maneuver as Nolan grabbed the lemon, and set to grating some zest. "I have to admit, I enjoy keeping them on their toes."

"That is the game," T'Challa said, though his tone made the game in question sound important rather than trivial. Parties and personal status were one thing, and keeping a nation unified something else. They were both alike and not in that regard. "And by all accounts, you play it well."

"I'm not the only one," Nolan stated, a genuine compliment, as he reached for the mascarpone next. He really hoped that T'Challa would join him in the Hamptons some time. Seeing him navigate Hamptons high society was very nearly a better reason than anything else to actually throw a party, and Nolan made a mental note to check what the Hamptons social calendar looked like for the next few months. "But for now, I'm going to have to abandon you," he added, risotto now ready, as he started tidying up after himself. "I have a boyfriend to feed."

"We should all have dinner together sometime," T'Challa suggested as he added greens and salt to his pan. "Have a good evening, Nolan."

"Let's schedule that, yes," Nolan agreed. He would actually like that, and when he left the kitchen with Shaun's and his dinner, it was with a small smile on his lips.

T'Challa watched him go, getting a generous splash of water and pinch of salt for the pan along with the greens, giving everything a stir before reaching into a pocket for his phone to text Ororo. Maybe she'd like dinner, too, and there was certainly enough to share.

Comments

[ax_glory]

Yes, double dates!! Yes, Hamptons parties!! YES NOLAN HAVING FRIENDS ESPECIALLY.