Chapter 1
There were a lot of opinions on Tony Stark and T’Challa was not sure which, if any, to believe. He has done his research, extensively so. Old interviews, business decisions, friends, lovers, he has gone through everything he could get his hands on from Tony’s past and then he combed through everything from his present. Friends, lovers, Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D files, business decisions, everything. He poured over it all once, twice, three times, and a fourth for good measure and came to the same conclusion every time. But Tony was his soul mate and his heart hurt to be away from him like this. It would be foolish to assume he could ever see the man objectively.
When he seen Tony for the first time… he was a fool. He saw him and his world exploded into color in perfect time with Tony turning to Steve with a hurt expression on his face, asking if he knew. Knew what T’Challa was unsure. He showed up just in time to find the man he was looking for, just in time to find out it was not Barnes who killed his father. He left Tony there, battling it out with Captain Rogers and Sargent Barnes to go exact his revenge on the man who murdered his father. What drove Tony mad he had no idea and when he had asked Rogers he simply looked away in guilt. No one else seemed willing to fill him in, if they even could, and the only other person who knew what happened right before T’Challa showed up was currently frozen. They had not made any progress on how to extract the conditioning from Bucky’s mind and T’Challa was sad for it. When they managed to heal Bucky’s mind he would like a chance to formerly apologize to him for what he has done. But until then he had to deal with Tony.
Coming to an objective conclusion on his own was not an option so he decided it was time to call in the Dora Milaje to help him out. They were trained in this sort of thing; they would come to a logical conclusion. Okoye in particular was one of his most trusted guards, she would make sure that they got to the bottom of the Tony Stark issue.
*
Okoye had her Dora Milaje look over the information King T’Challa had gathered for them but she did not have them read his notes. It was important that they come to an unbiased conclusion and this was a useful test for them. Some of the younger recruits were nervous of course, but they looked over the information just as diligently as the seasoned warriors and she was pleased with that. She went over the information too, planning on gathering the opinions of the other Dora Milaje. Then she was going to cross reference the information with the King’s notes and see where they all stood.
She did not expect the information to be so… conflicting. The media persona of Tony Stark was the flippant ladies man who drank too much and indulged only in himself. The business persona of Tony Stark presented an extremely business savvy man who predicted patterns of business before they even happened and profited because of it. The private persona of Tony Stark showed a lonely man with fewer than five friends, none of which he was particularly close to anymore. Rhodes was his closest friend the man had and they talked infrequently, and Okoye was hard pressed to include Miss Potts due to her being paid at first, and romantically involved later. Stark’s relationships were rocky and did not end well. Stark’s persona for the Avengers starts as rocky as his personal relationships. The team did not trust him, he did not trust the team, and Okoye did not see any evidence that this has changed.
The Black Widow gave her report and Okoye read that too, cross referencing that with the months she was undercover with Stark to draw conclusions. She was more than a little surprised to find these conclusions were drawn and accepted under extreme circumstances. She dismisses the report because it was not drawn from an objective viewpoint. The interviews come next. It was safe to say that she strongly disliked Tony Stark in his youth but she does her best to not let that color her view. The man was abhorrent, rude, crass, and had spent a lot of time talking with no clue how to do it. It then occurs to her that perhaps Stark genuinely did not know how to speak to people despite spending a large portion of his life in a highly evolved communication sphere.
To draw further conclusions or dismissals she refers back to his childhood. She had gone over the information of course but now she had a theory and it was time to test it against the reality. Stark was a boy genius, he grew up with a cold and abusive father and his mother did not appear to make up for that loss, and he went to college young. In short the man never had a childhood but it appeared that no one ever taught him how to be an adult either. It was no surprise that he was so wild as a young adult, it would appear that he was genuinely confused as to what his behavior was to look like. People loved and hated him for that too and it became clear in his later life that that ate at him but she did not know when that started. It could have started after Afghanistan or it could have started as early as childhood.
When Stark’s unease with his reputation started did not matter now that he was older, but it would have been useful to drawing objective conclusions about his character. Instead she was certain that the man never learned to communicate because he was never taught, and by the time he got to adulthood he was supposed to know the rules. But he had been living simultaneously as an adult and a child his whole life and it must have led to a severe maladjustment in his ability to relate to his peers. Instead it looked as if he developed his own method of communicating, one that no one understood. That, too, was simultaneously praised and demonized by the media and his peers.
Next she looks at the long list of lovers because this list ran a direct contradiction to her previous conclusions. Stark would have to be good at communicating to get people to go home with him and this list suggested he was very adept at that. Thankfully there was a large amount of video proof to go with the list. She resists the urge to roll her eyes at every stupid, cheesy pick up line but she does find the pattern fast. Stark was terrible at communicating, his awful pickup lines proved that, but he was adept at flashing his status. He knew he was attractive, he knew he was intelligent, and he knew he was rich. With these three certainties he managed to pick people up despite the cringe worthy pickup lines. He let people use him but why? And why did that stop for a while after Afghanistan only to pick back up again and then end for good? And what did that say about him, the people around him?
His list of friends was small; clearly people did not like him. Except the media spectacle he created doing anything showed that people did like him. Sometimes they liked him so much that the idea of someone else being with him made them quite literally homicidal. That was disturbing to say the least. So why the small list of friends? She digs into their pasts too, finding nothing particularly noteworthy for Stark to have picked up on. James Rhodes and Pepper Potts were exceptional people, of course, but they were not more exceptional that Stark himself. The only thing that stuck out to her was prolonged exposure. Did prolonged exposure lead to Stark… growing on people? She dismisses the theory immediately, remembering that the Avengers all had a considerably strong vendetta against the man. They have also spent a long time with him, they spent nearly six years living with him and they still disliked him.
Stubborn, suspicious, reckless, narcissist, arrogant, unbalanced, single-minded, selfish. Those were the words the Avengers associated with Stark and it was easy to see why if all they ever saw was the interviews the man did. It was not that there was no evidence to support those things, she has found lots of evidence to support those things, but there was too much that suggested that was the mask rather than the man. If Tony Stark was a selfish, unbalanced narcissist why did so much of his life suggest the near opposite? The man donated to charities regularly, which she would have dismissed as evidence of being a good person if it was not for Stark founding half of them. So he was aware enough of the issues to find people to build a charity for the issue and he donated regularly. Most of the charities were for abuse victims, abused children and battered women. She wondered if the man was trying to rewrite his own history by making sure others did suffer the abuse he had. He was failing.
Stark also went one step further than stopping his weapons business, he actually recalled everything and had it properly disposed of. The figures she had for the cost of this operation were very high, higher considering his business was failing at that point. But he did not seem to care. He also showed up to a random village and freed it from terrorists and that action was curious because it made no sense. Why show up to some remote village in the Middle East to rid it of the terrorists there? Why not choose a larger target? He does do that later on but his first act was a small one and it was very unlike what she has so far gathered of Tony Stark to do anything small. The man had a flair for the dramatic.
In the file King T’Challa gathered of Afghanistan she finds the answer in one Yinsen. The man had been held captive with Tony and he was the one that saved Stark’s life. He died in those caves, right in front of Tony according to Colonel Rhodes’ reports. It appeared that Tony flew to Yinsen’s village to rid it of the terrorists to avenge him or honor him, likely both. Interesting. Many of Stark’s first acts as hero were rash and were likely not very well thought out. Reckless. But the man also knew what he was doing and from the low set of casualties it seemed that despite his rash decision-making he was not running a task of complete reckless abandon.
Then came New York. After Afghanistan his drinking stopped while he recalled his weapons and did his best to rewrite his wrongs though being a hero and working in clean energy. Saving the planet. She allows herself a single eye roll at how dramatic that was but Stark was a man of extremes if her notes and conclusions were correct. His drinking picked back up again when the reactor began to poison his system and the man was a disaster. Any fool looking at his case should have known that something had gone wrong, never before did Tony Stark’s self-destructive tendencies ever negatively affect people like they were then. It was like every bad trait he ad increased tenfold and Romanov seemed content to either ignore this in favor of drawing her own conclusions or she was a terrible spy. She allows herself one eye roll at that too.
Stark’s partying stopped immediately after the reactor was fixed. Immediately. This did not align with the conclusions that Romanov drew. While her words described the situation she lived well it did not account for Tony’s mental and physical distress, and it did not account for his behavior afterwards. A good conclusion would have examined the before, during, and after but her report only covered the during. Some of her words were applicable elsewhere but they still did not account for the mental distress, which grew exponentially after Loki. New York broke him more than anything had before and he picked up a new habit, one he thought he could trust.
His compulsive building ultimately led to Ultron. He tried once before to destroy the suits and let being a hero go but his inability to let go of New York, of what he saw in the wormhole, led him to continue being a hero. This led to Ultron, which led to more of a split in the Avengers than there already was, which led to his girlfriend and a good portion of his very, very small support system leaving him. Then came the ‘Civil War’ as the media had dubbed it, which led to people Tony had tried to bond with all turning on him. They were not without reason but Okoye found the reasons… flimsy. She understood their actions, and Tony’s, but they were all rash and it led to them all putting too much faith in things that one needed to look at critically.
So the Civil War ends and Tony no longer has a girlfriend, almost loses his best friend, already lost his beloved AI JARVIS, loses the Avengers, loses the Accords, loses his mind, and he very likely assumed he lost his soul mate too. The man tried so hard to build something and every time that happened he lost it. He tries to be a hero and almost ruins it when he lost it after the reactor started poisoning him, he tries to be an Avenger only to be working with a team that had little to no faith in him, he tries to save the world from aliens and nearly ends it himself. Then he tries to listen to what the world is telling him to do, something he was not very good at even with his repeated efforts at it, and he loses near everything else he held dear.
She sits back and sighs. Tony Stark was indeed reckless, he was indeed stubborn, and he was indeed unbalanced but in her opinion the rest of the conclusions the Avengers drew were incorrect. It would appear that they assumed that the persona Tony wore for the media was the man he really was and- no. She shakes her head to clear it some. No, her information was inconclusive. There was too much either way to make an accurate assessment and it would be foolish of her to draw a conclusion simply because she hurt for her King’s soul mate. It was time to confer with the other Dora Milaje.
*
They came to the same conclusion she did, or rather the same lack of conclusion. Their thought process aligned right down to making the foolish assumption that Tony Stark was misunderstood without having any real proof that he was, or that he was not. Nakia, one of the newer recruits, lifts her hand slowly and hesitantly. Okoye nods at her to continue and she takes a deep breath, “I think at this point it would be most beneficial to talk to Tony Stark in person. It is the only way we can draw a proper conclusion without resorting to assumptions,” she says. Her voice is strong and clear despite her nervousness and Okoye is proud of her for it.
“I agree. Good work,” she says and she turns to the rest of the Dora Milaje, “all of you.” With that she leaves the room so that she could give her King a conclusion one way or another.
When she and Tony Stark meet it is very clear that he was not expecting her there, “Jesus Christ, who the hell are you?” he asks, hand pressed to the space over his heart. His right arm is in a sling and that does not look good.
“Is there something wrong with your arm?” she asks. It did not appear to be in a cast and she saw no bruising. His breathing was restricted though and that did not bode well either. She narrows her eyes at the thought of someone harming her King’s soul mate but she blinks, letting the anger go. Now was not the time or place.
“None of your business, and you are?” he snaps, glaring at her suspiciously.
“Dora Milaje,” she responds vaguely, “and I am here on the behalf of King T’Challa.”
“T’Challa can fuck off,” Tony snarls viciously and her eyebrows shoot up.
“Excuse me,” she says in a dangerous tone. Soul mate or not she would not allow him to insult her King.
“Anyone who is involved with Steve Rogers is no use to me,” he snaps.
Her eyebrows remain raised, “I understand that Steve Rogers has caused you pain, but I do not understand how that extends to King T’Challa,” she says calmly. Perhaps too calmly but Stark either does not understand the danger or he does not care.
Stark rolls his eyes, “I’ve spent the last five years dealing with people who blindly follow Steve Rogers around like a bunch of fucking lap dogs, I don’t need to have one more person tell me that I can never compare. I know that. No need to have anyone else remind me,” he says bitterly, his lip curling up in disgust.
That changed things. “I here because the King is not sure what to believe about you. He and the Dora Milaje agree that the information about you is too conflicting to draw a reasonable conclusion. So I am here to try and find the truth, to see what you’re really like. I must admit that I do not like you,” she says honestly. Perhaps the man would take the honesty well.
He does not, instead he flinches hard but the expression is gone very quickly. “Great, then you’re just like everyone else. Go report back to your king, tell him I’m as worthless as everyone says I am,” Tony says, turning and walking towards his kitchen.
“I do not like many people, that does not mean that you are not a good person. And my personal opinion of you means little when you are not meant for me,” she says. Tony’s shoulders tense at that but he turns slowly to face her.
“What do you want to know?” He looks exhausted, like he hasn’t slept in days and she supposes that it is very likely that he has not. The man had chronic insomnia and she suspected it made his very obvious PTSD worse. The dismissals from everyone else around him, including his closest friends, probably did not help the situation.
“Why did you support the Accords?” she asks bluntly. Cutting to the heart of the issue was what she was good at, and it saved her time and effort beating around the bush.
“Steve told me that I needed to trust people, to listen to them. He was right, so when the opportunity came to listen I did, or at least I tired but apparently that wasn’t right either,” he snaps bitterly, that disgusted look back on his face.
“You feel guilty for Ultron,” she says and it is not a question. He flinches at the bot’s name, he certainly felt guilty for being the creator of such chaos.
“Of course I do, who the fuck wouldn’t? I nearly ended the world when I ran that program and I should have said something to someone,” he says. She finds that curious, his anger at Steve and his acceptance that Steve was right in his conclusions about his communication skills or lack thereof.
“But you did talk to someone, Dr. Banner. I know that he is currently missing but surely you count your communication with him as something,” she says. Banner appeared to be the only Avenger who was not adverse to Tony. The two bonded over science and Tony’s lack of fear of him.
“Lot of good that did,” Tony mumbles.
“But you spoke to him and he agreed that it was a good enough idea to try,” she says.
“So what if I did? Everyone blamed me for it anyways, might as well take the blame. Bruce said it could go wrong and I didn’t listen, I should have.” He leans against the counter and sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Just because your team blamed only you does not mean it was fair. It is not like they are lacking in recklessness and stupidity themselves. What kind of moron releases a brainwashed assassin onto the world? Steve Rogers is very lucky that seems to have had no consequences. And his taking the word of Bucky Barnes as proof of five other Winter Soldiers was not wise either, the man hardly knows what is real and what is not, he is still partially under the control of HYDRA conditioning. Only a fool would take the man’s word at face value. I believe that your holding off until you found real proof of the Winter Soldiers’ existence made you the most intelligent and clear headed of the group, at least in that moment. The rest of the team has far too much faith in a man who is living in nostalgia. Bucky Barnes does not, nor will he ever, exist again as Rogers knew him. He should accept that,” she says bluntly.
It was a harsh truth, yes, but a man would never be the same after a trauma like that. Rogers himself was more than likely not the same man he used to be so he should not expect Bucky to be. He should also accept the reality of that trauma on his friend because living in his memories was not going to help Bucky Barnes. Accepting reality, no matter how harsh, was the only way to help Barnes heal from his wounds. It would not be easy for anyone but it was the most beneficial.
“You… think I’m the smartest and most clear headed of the group?” Tony asks, looking beyond shocked.
“In that moment, yes. You are not without your mistakes but that was not one of them. Tell me more about why you chose to support the Accords,” she says.
This time Tony pauses for a long time and she lets him gather himself. It was important to make an accurate judgment. Finally Tony looks up, “Steve was right about listening to people. Sometimes I go too fast and I don’t think things through right, I’ve done it time and time again, even when I was supporting the Accords. I’ll make a snap decision that looks good at the time but I don’t talk to the people I’m supposed to be helping, I just make a decision and assume it’s for the best when it isn’t. I had one hundred and seventeen countries telling me to slow down and stop and I didn’t think that was something I should ignore. They weren’t making unreasonable requests, they just wanted a say in how we ran things and you can’t help people if you aren’t willing to listen to what they need you to do. I’ve learned that now,” he says.
“Rogers thinks the best hands are still your own, you do not agree?” she asks, curious.
Tony rolls his eyes, “no, he thinks the best hands are still his own, not our own regardless of what he says. You saw what happened when someone said no, it didn’t line up with his beliefs and instead of reaching out and asking to change things, or asking why things looked the way thy did he threw the whole damn thing out. Besides, if we’re talking histories here I have a near one hundred percent fail rate. The best hands aren’t my own so I thought maybe if I had someone else vetting my decisions they might be better but if that person isn’t Steve Rogers Steve doesn’t think it’s good enough.”
Harsh words, but they were mostly true. She, too, found the Captain too rigid in his values. “And the agendas he spoke of?” she asks. He was not wrong for being suspicious of the government. They were corrupt, as near all systems were outside of Wakanda and even there they had their issues.
At this Tony looks down, “I put too much faith in a system I know doesn’t really work that well. But we aren’t apolitical people, we know what the UN’s agendas were, they were clearly written on paper and we could have worked with that, used it to our advantage. But the fuck if I know what their agendas are. Natasha flip-flops more than a fucking fish out of water, so does Clint, I have no idea what Wanda’s thinking, you already know what I think of Steve, and Sam… well he’s an alright guy. I think he’s an idiot for following Steve around like a lost bird but he’s a good man. I know I made mistakes but that bullshit letter Steve sent me proves he doesn’t care.”
She did not read the letter so she is unsure what he is talking about, “would you care to explain?” she asks, trying to be gentle. The man was raw, in pain, and it was bound to end badly for him. She was sure she had her answers but she was curious about the letter and more information would not hurt.
“Oh he’s glad I’m back on the compound, obviously I moved back out, but he doesn’t like to think of me being alone because the Avengers were more mine than his. Pretty sure the fact that they’ve all always hated me minus maybe Bruce indicates that that’s a bunch of shit but whatever. And he has faith in people, in individuals? Really? Because I didn’t see any of that faith when people, individuals, were reaching out to us to talk to them and he slapped them down because what they wanted wasn’t what he wanted. And he’s never had faith in me. Never. I find it really hard to accept that he gives a damn about hurting my feelings, especially when he’s always assumed that I didn’t have any. And his stupid ‘I wish we agreed on the Accords but we didn’t so fuck you’ at the end was a real nice touch. He might as well have wrote ‘lol everything before this was a joke because I don’t really care what you think was right, it wasn’t what I think is right so you’re wrong’. At least we can both agree that he was a selfish prick keeping my parents’ deaths to himself,” he mumbles.
So Tony Stark fell somewhere in between his public image and someone she did not know. He was clearly emotional, in pain, and that was not going to go well for him but he was not a bad person. He was not what the Avengers thought he was either. “You’re parents’ deaths?” she asks.
“Yeah, I mean I can’t keep secrets or so he reminded me about a million times with that Ultron bullshit, but he can keep the fact that Barnes killed my parents to himself. Guess all the shit I do is totally fine if he does the same damn thing. I don’t listen and accidentally create Ultron I’m a problem, and that’s fair, but he can ignore the whole fucking world and that’s totally A-Okay with him. I can’t keep secrets, but it’s fine if he does. I can’t be suspicious of government structures without being labeled ‘insubordinate’ and ‘arrogant’ but when he does it it’s fine!” Tony yells, throwing his hands up. He gathers himself some and settles against the counter, “sorry about that, this isn’t your fault or your problem. Go tell your king that I’m not the soul mate type. I don’t have much of an interest in him anyways.”
Tony turns around, back to the fridge, and opens it to get a drink. It’s a clear dismissal and she did not stay where she was not welcome.
*
Tony had thought about it for a long time, at least for him anyways. He stayed in the compound for two weeks before he moved back out, giving up on a dream that was never going to be a reality. Never was a reality, even. He knew damn well what the team thought of him and he was done with it, done with people looking down on him without even knowing him, or worse, deciding that if he wasn’t the one doing it the actions were totally fine. His whole damn life he’s had people tell him that he wasn’t good enough, that he’d never measure up. Howard reminded him near every five minutes he’d never be Steve but it turned out they had a lot more in common than anyone would have guessed. Not that he wanted to admit that.
At first when he got Steve’s letter he was happy, happy that he was being forgiven but then he started thinking about it. The more thinking he did the more it reminded him of that bullshit tape Howard left him when he was a kid, the one where he treats Tony like shit at the time of filming and then goes on to say that he’d change the world and that he was Howard’s greatest creation. Like he was a thing instead of a person. No wonder he and Steve liked each other so much, they were two peas in a pod. They fucking deserved each other, and so did the rest of the Avengers minus Sam. And kind of Scott, his idiot ass was just somewhere it shouldn’t be and if he was honest with himself, and these days he tried to be, Peter shouldn’t have been there either.
Hell, even Wanda was a little behind on all the things that led to the Accords, not that it mattered because the Avengers were no more. Tony was working on individual agreements with individual countries that wanted the option of Hero for Hire. He left contact open for any countries that had emergency situations and needed help but didn’t want him involved in much else. It was only fair after what he had done, what they had all done.
That fucking airport mess that he got stuck cleaning up was proof enough that people had reason to be afraid, they had a superheroed spat in a fucking parking lot and caused millions in damage. He’d be scared too if he couldn’t fight back against that. But Steve knew best. So he gave up on that pipe dream and he threw that fucking insult of a phone into the ocean where it belonged. He burned the letter and Rhodey informed him that that was dramatic. He didn’t care. Even if Rhodey was kind of right.
And then T’Challa. When you met your soul mate you were supposed to see colors but Tony had always seen them. After countless visits to doctors and specialists they concluded that he either didn’t have a soul mate or that something was wrong with him. Howard figured it was Option Two and made sure he paid dearly for it. But when he met T’Challa, and he used that term loosely, he felt something. At the time he thought it was part of the anger and hurt fueling him in his rage against Bucky but later, when he had mentioned it to Rhodey he said that Tony probably met his soul mate. Except Tony didn’t have one. It had felt right though, T’Challa being his soul mate, like when he finally got a math equation right.
It shouldn’t have surprised him when T’Challa didn’t show up but it stung like hell, knowing that once again someone liked Steve better than him. He spent his whole fucking life playing second fiddle to the guy and he hadn’t even been around until Tony was in his late thirties. Christ that was sad. So that was it, he wasn’t playing second fiddle anymore; he wasn’t going to be someone’s second best. He couldn’t take any more of that.
“Hey,” Rhodey says, “you okay?” He looks worried and he shouldn’t be, Tony isn’t the one who was never going to walk again without assistance. Rhodey was getting better at assisted walking, he’d be able to use crutches soon, but not for an extended period of time. It made more sense to remain in the wheel chair most of the time. And that was Tony’s fault too and he would admit that.
“I’m fine, Rhodes. Want pizza?” he asks, mustering up a smile for him.
Rhodey looks skeptical for a moment but eventually smiles back, “can we watch Stark Trek?” he asks,
“You know it,” Tony says, smiling for real this time. He orders the pizza and makes sure Rhodey is comfortably settled on the couch before throwing on the movie and settling himself.
When FRIDAY informs him that someone was at the door he assumes it’s the pizza guy so he tells her to let them in without paying much attention. He doesn’t even notice when the pizza guy doesn’t ask for money because he’s more focused on the plot of the movie. “I am rather fond of Star Trek too,” someone says from behind him and the sudden zing Tony feels tells him who it is.
He turns slowly towards T’Challa, hoping to hell that maybe the pizza guy also happened to be his soul mate or something. No such luck, T’Challa was standing there looking down at him with an almost… fond? expression on his face. “That’s… nice,” Tony says awkwardly.
Rhodey looks back and forth between the two, “uh, I’ll… need some help to leave room but then I’ll go,” he says. Tony wants to tell him to stay but T’Challa is already offering his assistance and Tony has the urge to flee but he didn’t know where he would go, plus he wasn’t running from his own damn home.