Chapter 8
T’Challa was not at all used to acceptance when it came to his position as prince let alone king, although he supposed there was not much time to find anyone who would take a sub that was also a king. He doubted that he would have found anyone though; people did not like his being a prince let alone being a step higher than that. Tony does act threatened at all though, quietly accepting that T’Challa had the kind of power over a large group of people that most couldn’t even imagine having. Some days T’Challa could not imagine it either.
“How did you end up so open to the idea of a sub having so much power?” he asks. Tony had mentioned Pepper being promoted as a sub and being the first. Fact-checking proved his words were not lies and a bit more research told him America had been confused by Tony’s actions. He chose to give Pepper that position, he allowed her to have more power in his own company than him. The public did not understand why a Dom would allow his sub more power than him. Tony had reacted largely by laughing it off and telling the media they needed a better idea of what power looked like. That was shortly before the self-destructive binge drinking and partying that Pepper had publicly stated she wanted nothing to do with.
Tony looks up from the paperwork he was looking over and frowns, “you know considering you’re from a country that supposedly treats subs equally you’ve dealt with a lot of shit for being a sub,” Tony points out.
T’Challa shakes his head though because Tony does not understand. Wakanda was nothing like America to its subs. “That is because I do not seem like a sub, not because I am a sub. Wakanda is not some sort of utopia, the reason inequalities exist for switches in particular is because my country has a very specific idea of what a Dom and sub is. There is no cross over- to my country I am far too close to a switch for comfort.” Doms did not know what to do with a sub like him and it seemed that that rang true for the rest of the world too, minus Tony apparently. Tony’s easy acceptance has thrown him and he is not sure what to do with it.
“They’re essentialist, then?” Tony asks, moving his papers aside to give T’Challa more attention.
“Essentialist?” T’Challa asks, only vaguely familiar with the word. He was fluent in several languages but there were still times when things confused him in translation. The use of contractions in English was still confusing to him at times, and the way the American south used contractions was like an entirely different language. It took him a solid five minutes to figure out what ‘y’all’d’ve’ was. Scientific terms, or sociological terms, were another point of confusion for him because they were obscure. And slang. American internet language was a confusing mess of letters. He supposed Wakanda would look quite confusing to an outsider as well though, even to countries that had similar languages or language roots. Isolation mean they developed differently.
“Yeah- the assumption that existing a certain way will mean you will function a certain way. Men tend to find women confusing because women don’t act like their essentialist stereotypes and it throws them. Pepper complains about it a lot. Anyways, it sounds like Wakanda has no idea how to handle you because they think that being a sub means you should act a specific way. It’s why everyone is confused by switches, they don’t ascribe to the binary Dom-sub ideal neatly,” Tony says.
Oh, right. He read about that in some college course he took in his teens, which explained the familiarity and why the knowledge was distant. It has been a long time since he was in school. “Right, yes. Wakanda is deeply entrenched in those ideals and it has plagued me for some time. They would not like you either, you are confusing,” he says.
Tony laughs, his eyes crinkling at the edge. “I’m only confusing because you expect me to act a certain way because I’m a Dom. Ironic when you don’t like when that happens to you, but you’re not alone. I’ve always been a little odd because I don’t really get a lot of social rules. It lands me in hot water a lot,” he admits.
T’Challa raises an eyebrow because that was not what he was told, but Tony had given the information freely and unthinkingly. It was unlikely to be a lie. “You do not understand social rules?” he asks, curious.
“Not really, no,” Tony says, shaking his head. “People want honest and get mad when I tell the truth, people want sex no strings attached and get mad when I take their word for it, people want me to work as a team and listen to people, they get mad when I do that. Not to mention I’m supposed to be greedy because I’m rich, but got flack when I was, I’m supposed to donate to charity because I’m rich- which is fair, but get accused of doing it for the press when I do. But when I don’t I’m the literal devil. Social rules make no sense because they’re constantly contradicting themselves so I gave up on trying to find the right level of honesty, or attachment, or charity donation and started doing what I wanted. People were going to hate me regardless of what I did, might as well have them hate me for being me.” Tony shrugs, unrepentant about this. Perhaps that was why Steve Rogers disliked him so much- the good Captain was not so willing to let go.
“You would loath politics,” T’Challa says, smiling just a little because he understood the way people had contradictory standards for others. Especially those in power. Criticism was always helpful, but sometimes people complained about the most bizarre of things. Like T’Challa not being married of all things. He did not know how being married would make his politics better considering a family life would distract him from his country’s needs in theory.
“I do, politics are sticky and messy and this is why I should have always stuck to engineering but its too late and I almost ended the world so I should probably deal with the political fall out of that,” Tony says, sighing deeply.
“Yes you should, though I have a hard time figuring out how you made a genocidal AI. You have already built an AI, you know how they work, how did you go wrong?” he asks out of genuine curiosity.
Tony sighs again and rubs his temples. “Technically Bruce and I only ran the program, the stone sort of… did it’s own thing but if I hadn’t ran the program the stone would have continued being useless.”
That was odd for a few reasons and T’Challa debates on whether or not he wants to say something for a moment before deciding that he did. It would be useful to know how Tony’s mind works if he was going to be subject to it himself. “Why run the program? And why specify that Bruce ran it with you than take the blame? You are both at fault if you both ran the program, if it was only you than only you are at fault.” That was something the Avengers did too, T’Challa has noticed. Someone else was always involved in Tony’s actions but strangely only he was to take the blame. He found it confusing.
“I uh… there was some shit with Wanda and she made me see something. I thought I saw the end of the world; I was convinced I saw it. Steve, in the dream, he asked me why I didn’t do more so I ran the program to try and do more. Bruce and I were only looking to see if Ultron was possible, we didn’t think it would be possible, that he’d kill JARVIS, and end up being genocidal. We weren’t even sure he was possible,” Tony says, shaking his head.
T’Challa frowns again because that sounded… accidental. He would think Tony was lying if he did not seem intent on taking responsibility for his mistake. “You accidentally created a genocidal AI?” he asks to clarify.
“Basically,” Tony says.
“That… is deeply unfortunate… What did you mean by Wanda making you see something though, why would she do that? Are you not working for the same cause?” he asks. And why did the Avengers blame Tony for something that sounded minimally preventable? It went without saying that Bruce and Tony should not have gone around toying with alien stones and for good reason now, but no one could possibly predict running a test on something would end in the apocalypse. And why would Wanda purposely frighten Tony with visions of the end of the world? He gets the feeling that he’s missing a large part of the picture in regards to what was happening with the Avengers.
*
Pepper should have known that this would happen and she should have never pressed Natasha’s limits the way she had just to prove a point. She’s been spending too much time with Tony, thinking stupid things like this would end well. Natasha struggles to gain control of her breathing, curled on the ground with her head resting on her knees. Pepper sets a glass of water down beside her and sits a good distance away to wait. Touching Natasha was likely a bad idea at the moment and she was unsure of how Natasha dealt with panic attacks. She barely knew how to handle Tony when he got like this let alone a master spy assassin.
It occurs to her that she’s in over her head here and that scares her. She didn’t like not knowing what was going on and that had been why her relationship with Tony failed. They both should have known that the kind of compatible they were would never translate to romance but neither of them stopped to think for a minute and it had taken a toll. She was thankful she hadn’t lost her friendship with Tony though; she cared about him still even if their relationship didn’t work out.
That did make her wonder how the hell her relationship with Natasha was supposed to work out when she was less predictable than Tony ever was. “S-sorry,” Natasha croaks out, drawing Pepper’s attention away from her thoughts.
“There’s nothing to apologize for Natasha, I should have known that you wouldn’t have been prepared for this based off what you told me before. I shouldn’t have pushed you,” she says. Natasha was used to pain, suffering, and not really being there during any interaction with kink. She was also used to having an ulterior motive for being there and after her initial failure at manipulating Pepper she hasn’t tried anything. Pepper has been watching too. But she should have known that the sort of sensual interactions she liked would have thrown Natasha into a panic; it was too much for her too soon.
“I thought I was fine,” Natasha tells her, slowly moving into a less cramped position and finding her water. “Thanks,” she murmurs and picks the water up, draining the cup quickly.
“Of course you did, you’re not used to taking care of yourself. You do what you need to do to make it through; the problem is that this wasn’t a survival situation. I should have known that this would have been too much for you to handle right now. Taking things slowly so you could acclimatize to feeling out your limits, likes, dislikes, and pleasures would have been ideal.” But no, Pepper had forged on ahead because she knew Natasha wasn’t ready and wanted to prove it to her too. Stupid and reckless, how was Natasha supposed to trust her now? She wouldn’t trust her.
Natasha lets out a sharp laugh, “wow, we are not good at this. I thought soul mates were supposed to just know and all of that shit? Whatever. Guess we’re even now in the screwing each other up department,” she mumbles.
“That shouldn’t be some sort of game we keep track of,” Pepper notes. God knew that would only devolve into a tit for tat relationship in which all they did was cause the other pain and suffering. Neither of them needed that in their lives.
“No it shouldn’t. But we know where the other stands right now for sure at least. That puts us on equal footing so now when we do whatever one can’t feel guilty for fucking over the other. We’ve both messed up pretty big. Can you get me some more water?” she asks, holding out her cup to Pepper.
It isn’t until she comes back and Natasha drains another cup that Pepper remembers Tony’s comment about never seeing Natasha eat or drink in front of others. She has no idea what to do with that kind of trust when she just thoroughly broke any trust Natasha should have had in her so she decides the only thing she could do was never break that trust again.
*
Hope has always been resourceful but having a disabled sub was not something she prepared for, especially not one that was unaware of his own limits at the moment. She was fairly certain going through a trauma like that would create all sorts of limits Rhodey didn’t have before falling and she wasn’t all that keen on testing the waters to find them. But to a point she didn’t have a choice- there would be at least one thing that went wrong and she was going to have to learn to deal with it. Rhodey too.
It doesn’t help that he’s suspicious of his own worth, something she didn’t like because he might try to push himself either physically or mentally when he shouldn’t. “How did you and Tony even end up friends?” Rhodey asks her. A safe subject she knew, Rhodey knew plenty about Tony and he was protective of him too. Trying to figure her out and acting like it was for Tony’s safety and wellbeing rather than his own was safer.
“He had a lot of bullies and I had a lot of rage at my father for abandoning me and my mom for dying. We made a sort of unspoken deal, I punch his bullies, and he messes up my father’s projects. He was good enough at it that Hank became convinced Howard was sabotaging him. It never occurred to him that it was me or Tony.” That had been the point of the whole thing. Hanks hadn’t been fond of Howard anyways so it hadn’t been hard for him to assume Howard was trying to screw him instead of his genius kid and Howard’s genius kid.
“You beat up his bullies?” Rhodey asks, eyebrow rising in disbelief.
“What? Don’t think I can throw a punch? I can, and I’m good at it too. Last week I beat Tony up,” she says proudly.
“I thought you were supposed to beat up his bullies?” Rhodey says, seemingly recognizing her previous comment as a joke despite the truth of it.
“He has inner demons,” she says and Rhodey bursts out laughing.
“Good answer. What happened to you two though, you get along surprisingly well so what happened to that?” he asks.
That was a fair question. “We both had a lot of problems, Rhodey. When his parents died he went off the rails and I was in no position to offer support, by hatred for my father was near all-consuming at that point in my life. He went off to try and forget every bad thing that’s ever happened to him by finding the bottom of every bottle he could find and I stole my father’s research and started a company with someone I thought I could ruin Pym’s life with. It backfired on me the same way Tony’s actions backfired on him. I came back because I needed the Ant-man suit. I missed him too, but I thought it’d be far too late to reconcile.” Thankfully she had been wrong and her small inside joke had actually gotten somewhere. She hadn’t expected Tony to be so responsive to her, not after the way things were left between them.
He had as many abandonment issues as she did, she thought he’d hate her for leaving him but he didn’t seem that concerned. She supposed that was what she wanted though she hadn’t hoped to wish for it, and she got Rhodey as a bonus out of it.
“Funny he never mentioned you to me when you seem to have a lot of history,” Rhodey says.
“If he ever mentioned a Jan he did. I used to go by my mother’s name, I still use her last name,” she says. “If he didn’t mention me by that name I have no idea why he never said anything.” She never said much of anything to her friends but that was because they didn’t understand her burning rage at her father like Tony did.
“You went by dead mother’s name?” Rhodey asks, frowning.
“I told you, I had issues.” Still did, but she knew how to handle them better now. Now she just had ants march other dead ants into her father’s coffee in the mornings.