Chapter 4
“What the hell was going on with you earlier Peter? It was like you couldn’t see or something,” Tony says. He had watched as Peter got his ass handed to him earlier on T.V and as much as he would have loved to do something about it when he tried to move he almost passed out. T’Challa had banished him to the couch at that point and Tony was too busy trying to remain conscious to argue with him.
Peter bites his lip and looks down, “I kind of couldn’t. I broke the goggles you made by accident and I tried to fix them but I think I maybe made them worse and I couldn’t tell you because-” Tony cuts him off.
“The hell you couldn’t tell me, you could have died Peter! What the hell were you thinking?” he asks, trying to get up but the pain radiating from his heart was keeping him on the couch. Ugh. “What broke? Bring them to me so I can fix them immediately,” he says when he seems to be unsuccessful in his endeavors to get the hell up.
“No! You need to like… rest or something. You look like shit, no offense,” Peter says, flinching a little.
“Actually he has been going a little stir crazy on the couch and given the state of American television I do not blame him. It is all so predictable,” T’Challa mumbles, shaking his head. He was particularly annoyed with the state of American horror, which he claimed was either meant to shock the viewer or it was bizarrely religion centered. Tony couldn’t really deny that, the entire Saw series was designed to wig people out in increasingly more disgusting ways. Not that he liked horror, which was problem two with the genre, the only time Tony has been able to move very far was when he all but leapt straight off the couch in terror.
It was safe to say that T’Challa’s favorite genre was not Tony’s. But T’Challa didn’t seem to care for cheesy eighties action movies either- he outright rolled his eyes when Sylvester Stallone jumped out of a helicopter yelling ‘freedom’ in Demolition Man. Tony wasn’t sure how he was going to take the Captain America movies but after that fiasco he was totally going to make T’Challa watch them. There were so many times when ‘Steve Rogers’ yelled ‘freedom’ needlessly. Tony was not about to miss an opportunity to see T’Challa’s face as he watched that on screen. Then he was going to live Tweet the whole thing so everyone else could laugh too. And because Rhodey was special he just might get blessed with videos.
“Yeah, please give me something to do. I’m dying here,” Tony says. Maybe literally given that breaking soul bonds could actually result in death, but he didn’t like to think about that.
“But… that looks a little… literal,” Peter says, wincing when T’Challa gives him a sharp look.
“Whatever, I’m bored and it’s small work. T’Challa can bring me my tools if you’d be so kind?” Tony says, smiling at T’Challa.
“If it keeps your from complaining about everything then I will happily provide you with entertainment. And so long as I do not have to watch any movie you think is decent,” he says.
“Oh, can we watch my pick!” Peter asks excitedly.
“You cannot do worse than Tony,” T’Challa says and Tony resents that, really. He loved his classics, music too. Which T’Challa also hated because he lacked taste.
In the end T’Challa disliked the Hunger Games as much as Tony’s pick, but now Tony was suffering Jennifer Lawrence yelling about bread on screen too. Peter, at least, was happy with his own choice and Tony had to wonder what kind of shit kids these days were into.
*
Steve brushes Tony’s hair back and Tony blinks a few times, frowning because Steve shouldn’t be here. “Hey,” Steve says softly, “remember when you said that we never really shared anything? Well, we’re sharing a dream so I guess you were wrong.”
It isn’t meant to be rude, Tony knows, but he can’t help but bristle at the comment. “Hey, hey, shh, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that you don’t think we have a bond worth saving and I do and now I’m proving it,” Steve says.
Tony sits up in his bed, sign number two that this was definitely a dream because in real life he couldn’t move much and unless T’Challa moved him he was on the couch. They were where Steve imagined they would be; there were accounts of this.
“Steve, the only think you’re proving is that you’re desperate enough to save the bond that it’s finally letting you contact me in my dreams. Scientifically-“ Steve cuts him off.
“This isn’t science, Tony, this is love,” Steve tells him forcefully.
“Love is science, in case you didn’t know it’s just a bunch of chemicals in the brain. Sounds scientific to me. All emotions are like that and soul bonds are no different, Steve, that’s just how it works,” he explains almost gently even though he was frustrated. But in Steve’s time none of this stuff was known, in his time people were still arguing about whether or not soul bonds even existed. There were heavy accounts of them all over the world, through all cultures, through every time period there was and even some anthropological evidence of soul bonds from pre-history but that wasn’t enough post-enlightenment. That’s when measurable data was heavily preferred- something Tony both loved and hated. He loved empirical data for obvious reasons, but he hated it because it was so damn limiting.
There were too many times people have told him that his ideas were worthless because they were impossible according to science. That didn’t stop him from defying physics and all known data because yeah, that data exists, but any scientist worth their salt knew that data was always subject to change with new discoveries. So keeping an open mind was necessary, otherwise progress would never happen. Hell, scientists in the eighteen hundreds would have assumed Tony’s suit was witchcraft for fucks sakes, clearly they made some advancements since then by knowing that data wasn’t necessarily as fixed as people liked to assume it was.
“What is it with you and science, this isn’t the kind of thing you measure and test Tony. Is just is, soul mates are… they’re magic,” Steve says. Tony can see him trying to get his point across, pleading with Tony through his facial expressions but Tony wasn’t having it.
“You don’t get it Steve, you talk about magic like it’s… separate from science. Don’t you understand, science is magic. Imagine me going back in time and showing people the things I can do now, they’d think it was all an illusion, that it was an elaborate magic trick but it isn’t. Its just science that they would have never been exposed to. Some famous dude said that magic is just science we don’t understand yet and how true is that- look at Thor. He has so much stuff that we’ve never seen or heard of and none of it is magic, we just haven’t figured out the explanation yet,” Tony says. He can feel his excitement level rising because this was one of his favorite topics, science was just who he was but other scientists didn’t get it.
They talked empirical evidence and objectivity like it was separate and different from feeling and humanity but it wasn’t. How many scientific discoveries would have never happened if that scientist had never had a feeling? Tony has revolutionized the world time and time again on nothing but a hunch and yeah, obviously you needed evidence to back it all up, that was a given. But to start? All you needed was some hope and all the knowledge that came before you, then you could cut out a piece of knowledge that you discovered yourself. Jane Foster’s entire work was based on feeling too and she discovered way more about the universe in a single conversation with a literal alien than most people have in a lifetime of research. And even better, it backed up everything that she had been saying before when no one believed her. Science and feeling weren’t separate and the data would happily prove that. Humans might have feelings but hard data and numbers, that didn’t lie. But sometimes you needed a feeling to get there.
“That’s not how it works Tony, some things just don’t need an explanation,” Steve says, frowning at him.
Just like that a damper was thrown on his good mood because as usual Steve missed the point. “Yeah Steve, things do need an explanation, if we know how things work we gain so much from it, we can learn! We can do better, build better, expand! How do you not get it, explanations are the reason for so many positive changes in the world, imagine if people still believed the bullshit pseudoscience that circulated in the nineteenth and twentieth century! Science and progress is necessary to for us all to grow out of our past into a better future. Soul mates are part of that; in your time people actually thought soul mates didn’t exist. Science proved they did, even if the science of how soul mates exist is a little shaky,” he says.
There was some evidence that other animals had soul bonds too- cows in particular showed evidence for favoring certain cows over others and experienced duress when separated from their favorite cow, but the science of soul bonds with animals was still in progress. But the fact that it was happening, that people were no longer denying that soul mates did exist was where they needed to be, the how would come later. And hell, maybe cows really did have soul mates, and maybe other animals too. It wasn’t as if humans were the only special species on the planet though people didn’t much like the idea that wasps had soul mates. To be honest neither did Tony, those little fuckers didn’t even have souls let alone mates.
Steve rolls his eyes, “would you just stop, science doesn’t matter Tony, not with this. It’s done some good things for the world but we don’t need to poke around at soul bonds, why would we even do that?” Steve asks, curling his lip like that was… disgusting or something.
“So we know what’s going on Steve, in the fifties people assumed all bonds were healthy, heterosexual, and romantic. We know now that that isn’t true, the nineties saw huge improvements in how bond types were categorized and developed and do you even know the kind of impact that had on same-sex couples? They were no longer labeled deviants, Steve; we would have been an illegal pairing in your time because people didn’t poke at soul bonds. Rhodey’s bond with me would have been illegal too actually, desegregation didn’t happen until ’67 and platonic bonds weren’t officially a category of bonds until ’97. Shit were Rhodey and I confused for years before someone came along and thought to assume that maybe bonds weren’t all romantic. And the notion that bonds can go one way, that was huge in the eighties. Don’t you get how important that knowledge is?” he asks.
Surely Steve couldn’t be that obtuse, his own supposed soul mate would have been illegal in his time. “Imagine if Bucky and Sam had met in the forties Steve, they would have been killed! Poking at things is the reason they can be together- we know now that the reasons they would have been crucified were ridiculous, that previous bond assumptions are nothing more than bigoted crap and the data proves it. Science did that, and curiosity. I know that you think bonds are sacred and all that but what I don’t think you’re getting is that science is too, at least to me,” he says.
Steve opens his mouth to reply, his face softening some but Tony doesn’t get to hear his response because he wakes up, or more accurately he’s woken up. He blinks a few times to readjust to the light around him, finding T’Challa crouching beside him looking worried. “You deemed distressed about Steve,” he explains.
Right, sleep talking. It wasn’t something he did often according to Pepper but it happened. It freaked her out when it happened but T’Challa only looked worried about him. “What do you think about science?” he asks.
T’Challa frowns, “science… in Wakanda science is different than what you are used to. But I have always been a man of science and discovery; I enjoy building things and figuring them out. I like learning and expanding and science does not always do that, but it does provide a good platform for that kind of evolution of knowledge to happen.”
Tony smiles, “so you get it, you know that science is the way forward, even if it takes us all a step back for a moment in time. Failure is necessary to learn too; I mean look at all the crazy shit people believed about skulls and head shape way back when. But we learned that that was bullshit and moved forward, even if we aren’t where we need to be yet,” he says. But they were trying and science was allowing them to do that, allowing them to combat problems bot social and technical with facts that challenged what they knew, that expanded their knowledge base. How did Steve not understand that?
“Yes, science is a good way to learn, to move forward. I do not think that it is the only way to do that but you are not a man of religion,” T’Challa says, smiling at him.
He lets out a soft laugh, “no, I’m not. No real evidence for a god, or gods,” he adds, remembering that T’Challa’s culture had a polytheistic religion.
“‘Sometimes a leap of faith is the difference between a theory and a discovery’,” T’Challa says, grinning.
“Did you just quote something I said in my early twenties?” he asks, laughing when T’Challa nods. “Bring me definitive proof that your gods exist and I will happily believe in them,” he says.
T’Challa runs his fingers over Tony’s arm, “I do not care if you believe in my gods, my own faith is enough for me. But your faith in science, that might as well be a religion on its own. You are a strong believer,” T’Challa notes.
“Maybe. I like to think that science is a bit more fact based but hey, for all I know I’m not looking for facts in the right places. Looking for things in areas you wouldn’t expect only to discover a whole new thing has happened to me more times than I can count, but I’ll still stick with the science side of things regardless of its similarities to religion to you.” He disagreed but that was fine, he didn’t expect to agree with T’Challa on everything. That was impossible and after the last few years he’s learned to agree to disagree without making a big deal out of it.
T’Challa smiles, “well, at least you did not try to tell me that I am stupid and primitive for my beliefs,” he says, shaking his head like he thought whatever twit told him that was the stupid primitive one.
“Ew,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose because one, that’s just rude, and two, religion didn’t make a good intelligence guide. Hell, his father was an atheist and he might have been brilliant scientifically but he was horrible in basically every other area.
“Agreed. The kicker is that the man was religious, which means that he was also stupid and primitive,” T’Challa says.
‘Oh, but his religion is the right one. Another reason I’ve never liked religion, too many of them,” he says.
“As opposed to how many scientific theories?” T’Challa asks, eyebrow rising.
“Okay so you win that one, but just that one,” Tony says, feigning resentment. T’Challa laughs at him and he laughs back as best as he could in his current state. It was nice though, the pleasant conversation with T’Challa that was so unlike his relationship with Pepper or Steve. Both of them had expected a degree of compliance and agreement with their plans and beliefs but T’Challa, he was happy to just talk about things without it being a problem that they didn’t agree. He learned things that way, like random tidbits of T’Challa’s culture and things about his gods even if Tony didn’t believe in them. The information was still relevant and useful if only because it mattered to T’Challa.
“So what brought on the question of science, if you do not mind me asking,” T’Challa murmurs some time later.
“Steve. Turns out he can appear in my dreams now, ugh. Anyways we’ve sort of always disagreed on science and it’s sort of a sticking point for me. He just doesn’t understand how I see science, what it means to me,” he says, frowning some remembering his dream conversation with Steve. He really wished science could tell him how to stop that from happening because he didn’t need any more crap from Steve.
“Then you are not having a disagreement over science, you are having a disagreement over the fundamentals of your beliefs and it appears that you cannot reconcile your differing opinions. What science means to you does not require an understanding of said science, it requires understanding you. You do not believe in my gods, for example, but you know they are important to me regardless and you allow space for my beliefs. I take it that does not happen with Steve?” T’Challa asks even though he knows the answer.
“I don’t really think either one of us make room for each other. Once again we’ve proven that we suck together,” he mumbles.
“The bond will break Tony, it will just take time,” T’Challa tells him in a soft, comforting tone. Or at least it’s meant to be comforting but Tony had his doubts. He swore the damn bond was getting stronger, not weaker.