Chapter 7
When Tony wakes up T’Challa, thankfully, is gone. The cat is still there though, curled into his side like she belonged there, snoring away. He gently runs his hand over the cat’s soft fur, earning a short glare from the animal as she cracked an eye open to give him a look but she goes back to sleep quickly, stretching herself out to do so. Tony snorts, rolling his eyes fondly at the cat’s dramatics and going back to petting her fur. The space around him was quiet, indicating it was either sometime during the night or the early morning. He would have liked to have gone back to bed but he knew that that wasn’t about to happen any time soon so he shifts some, irritating Cleocatra and earning an annoyed meow for his efforts.
“What? The world doesn’t revolve around you, I have stuff to do,” he tells her. She blinks up at him for a moment and lays her head back down, except she lays in it his ribs instead of her paws. That was full on adorable and he couldn’t move now, it was cruel to reject such a sweet gesture from the cat. He half wished the cat would go and half wished the cat would stay forever in such a cute position. So instead of going and doing something with himself he lays there with Cleocatra’s head on his ribs for a solid twenty minutes before the cat decides that she has sufficiently proved her point, the world did in fact revolve around her cuteness, and she jumps off the bed.
He couldn’t believe he just one-upped by a cat. Regardless, he pulls himself out of bed with some difficulty; apparently soul mate magic wasn’t enough for him to be completely healed. That would have been nice, not that he was expecting things to work that way but from what he witnessed T’Challa was enhanced somehow. If he was really lucky maybe some of that would rub off on him, it wasn’t like there was an abundance of research into how bonds with enhanced people worked, if they worked differently at all. Tony resolves to take notes and to tell FRIDAY to pay attention to the differences if she spotted any. It would be good practice for her to observe human behavior and get used to T’Challa.
Not that he was going to be around much if ever. But if he were she would at least know what to do. He walks over to the bathroom that attached to his room, noticing the stuff he brought with him as he goes, and ran through his morning routine. He slept in the suit he was wearing when he got there despite the discomfort, which spoke to how tired he must have been. That was weird considering he slept on the plane too and his sleeping habits have long since been destroyed. Even as a child he never slept well, always too many designs bouncing around in his head, taking up space and refusing to leave him alone. Back in MIT Rhodey tried to get him to write things down so he could sleep, figuring that maybe if he wrote down the ideas that were keeping him awake he could sleep. That worked all of once because then the improvements came and no matter how much he wrote down there was always something more to add.
In the end he just learned to live with only sleeping after being awake for long stretches, usually a day or more. It was great in school because everyone else needed eight hours a night and he could function on that for like a week. Two hours a night, or more like power naps during the day, meant he ended up crashing and sleeping for like two days straight but he got his shit done and even sold some of his other work on the side. It also meant that he graduated with high honors with Rhodey and got to brag about it later. Now he slept more than that, aging had some positive side effects after all, but not much more. He wasn’t going to be pulling the stunts he did in college any time soon but he still only managed to get a good rest every could days if he was lucky. Most of his time was spent tossing and turning and going back down to the lab because he might as well be useful if he was awake.
Now he sort of wished he had a normal sleep pattern because jetleg sucked for normal people let alone your average insomniac. But no, he had long since been the exception to the rule even in sleep patterns so he was going to spend the next few days trying and failing to adjust only to go back to New York and spend more time trying and failing to adjust. Rhodey had it worse though, since his accident he has settled into a nice routine and this was going to screw it all up for him. Ideally Tony would have left him at home but Rhodey had insisted and if Tony was honest it was nice to have at least one person that would be on his side.
He exits the bathroom and goes to his suitcases, pulling out a well-worn pair of jeans and an equally well-worn AC/DC shirt. The material was soft and far less restricting than the suit and it makes him feel better, more at home here. He grabs his StarkPad too, the Iron Man armor was always in need of updates and he was working on some new ideas to maximize efficiency, so he could do that before he… did whatever. Negotiations were planned for tomorrow so god knew what he was supposed to do for a whole day aside from maybe go exploring with Rhodey. He decides not to think about it for now and he decides to go look for somewhere that was quiet and peaceful to sketch designs for the armor.
*
T’Challa is dying and he know it, palladium poisoning was slowly strangling him to death. If he was lucky, and current events were not indicating he was, he had six months tops. This was his last birthday and he didn’t know what to do, how to handle it, if he could handle it. He doesn’t want to consider it but he’s always been an ‘on my terms’ kind of guy and suicide was looking better and better every day. That meant his death would be short and easy and everyone could move on that much faster instead of realizing that he was dying. Then he would have to start grieving for him before he even died and that just might put him over the edge. He didn’t want to see the people he loved hurt, especially not for him, so he either did this the easy way or the hard way.
Or maybe it was hard both ways. Whoever said suicide was the cowards’ way out, he decides, had never actually considered the option. There was nothing fucking easy about this for him or anyone else. But what was he supposed to do? He was going to die whether he did it himself or if he waited for the reactor to kill him or hell, even the shrapnel to kill him. Three options, all of them led to the same road, and he at least got to control one. It was a no fucking brainer to him even if he didn’t want to, not really.
All those times he wished he was dead and now that he was dying he didn’t really want that at all. What a cruel fucking joke this was. He’s drunk, he’s pretty sure he took something earlier, and he’s contemplating his own goddamn death on his birthday. He, for one, has decided that fate was a cruel mistress for continuing to kill him with his own inventions. So he deserved it, but he figured he could like… get crushed with a piano or something so it was quick. Poetic justice was what this was, spending all that time figuring out how to most efficiently kill people with his inventions only to be efficiently killed by his own twice now, and the second one was supposed to save him from the first. It was time to face the facts, he was meant to die by his own hand anyways.
He almost doesn’t notice Natalie there, watching him quietly almost looking sorry for him. Or maybe that’s just what she was willing to show him. “So,” he says somewhat conversationally, slurring his words a little, “if this was your last birthday what would you do?” he asks. Maybe she had better ideas than offing oneself.
Natalie tips her head up some, almost in defiance and boy was he familiar with that look, he made it himself all the time. “Whatever the hell I want,” she says boldly. Yeah… yeah, whatever the hell he wanted. He was good at that, spent his whole life doing that and yeah, he should spend the rest of it doing whatever he wanted. Why the hell not, what did he have to lose? Or, that’s right, everything.
T’Challa’s eyes fly open and he is furious. All that judgment, all that ignorance towards Tony, and Natasha encouraged the very behavior she was judging him for? He wants to punch something or run off his anger or… or something but he does not. Instead he quietly seethes that the audacity to judge a man for actions you all but told him to do. There was no doubt in his mind that Natasha knew exactly how Tony would have perceived that, how he would have spun out of control more than he already was and she all but told him to go further with it. She judged him for putting people in danger, for causing such a scene when she was partially the cause of said scene and those people being in danger! And yet she did not judge herself for her own stupidity like she did Tony? Unbelievable.
And more than that, what was there to learn from Tony doing more damage than he already was? How did that influence her understanding of him? T’Challa saw no reason for her actions other than curiosity at what he would do and that was unacceptable.
He leaves his room in something of a flurry, earning a look from Okoye but she does nothing but melt back into the shadows, no doubt following him though she was subtle about it. He did not care. Right now he had problems to deal with, like the idiocy of the Avengers as a whole. What made him look out the window he was not sure but when he spots Tony curled up across the yard under a tree he stops for a moment. He means to continue but Tony’s concentration on the StarkPad he was holding captures his attention for a moment, watching as Tony’s brows draw together for a moment before going back to doodling on the pad with a stylus. For a moment he watches Tony, fascinated with the strange sort of foreign beauty he had before he starts to walk over.
“She all but told you to do it,” he says upon reaching Tony. Tony’s head jerks up from his project and he blinks in confusion at T’Challa, like he was genuinely confused that he was there. He saw no reason for Tony to be surprised, he did not make his entrance particularly sneaky, he simply walked across the lawn.
“Who all but told me to do what?” he asks, confused.
Right, of course Tony would not follow his thought process and the comment likely looked very out of place when coming out of nowhere. “Natasha, at your birthday party, you know the which one I’m talking about. She all but told you to act like a reckless ass and she’s spent the last six years judging you for her own stupidity,” he all but snarls. He is livid about this.
“She didn’t tell me to do anything, I was going to do whatever I wanted anyways,” Tony says. T’Challa is curious about that, his acceptance of his actions, but he would explore that more later.
“You were contemplating suicide, I know because I just dreamt it, and you asked her what she would have done if that was her last birthday. She is a highly trained professional, she knew exactly what that response would encourage you to do and she told you to do it anyways for reasons I cannot even fathom. Yes, you reacted terribly and you should not have done that but she should have never encouraged your alcohol induced rampage,” he says. That was illogical, stupid even. And then to spend all that time judging Tony for it and apparently glossing over the extreme circumstances of those events not to mention her own role in them. What Tony needed in those moments was support and from what T’Challa had gathered when Tony got bad everyone up and left him, even his beloved Rhodey. Senseless idiots, and they wonder why Tony does not trust easily!
“Whatever you want is a pretty common response, T’Challa, she was probably just feeding me a line,” Tony says in a bland tone.
T’Challa all but vibrates out of his body with anger. Why would Tony defend her actions? They were irresponsible and they should not be defended! “If she was feeding you a line than she should have told you that she would spend time with those she loves, which is just as common a response. Or even something more mundane than that, like eating an entire kitchen full of food, that is what I would do. Why stick to a diet if you are going to die anyway? The only reason I see for telling you that specifically is to see how far you could be pushed until you broke and that put people in danger. She knew that you were on a bender and if I am correct than she was intent on seeing how bad you would get and then she gave you the final nudge you needed to break. Now she assumes that all you are is what you were in what you thought were your final moments without even taking a nuanced glace at what even caused you to go over the edge to begin with! Fool,” he snaps, shaking his head.
Every time he thought he had all the information something new came up, something more that indicated the Avengers held far more flaws than what they admit to and he was very tired of this game. He asked for information up front, he gathered his own information, and now he realized that in doing this he completely missed Tony’s version of events. And judging from the memory dreams there was a lot more to those events than any of the Avengers let on. Shuri was right, he should have gone straight to Tony and judged for himself instead of assuming he would get a more clear picture elsewhere. He, too, has been a fool and he owed Tony more of an apology that what he has already offered.
“It wouldn’t have mattered what she said, I would have done the same thing,” Tony says in a resigned tone.
“Oh please, you would not have. If she gave you some absurd answer like… like licking an iguana you would have found an iguana for her to lick. Her response was ill thought out, irresponsible, and senseless and it cost you and everyone around you,” he says in a harsh tone.
Tony gives him a long look before responding. “One, you don’t know me so you have no clue what I would or wouldn’t do. And two, I totally would have found an iguana. Doesn’t change the facts though, I acted like an idiot and I paid the price like I should have and I apologized to Rhodey for punching him in the face. In hindsight that was uncalled for considering I was the one in the wrong,” he says.
T’Challa considers tearing his hair out in frustration but he decides against it. He liked his hair and that would also be a very strange thing to do. He did not need to make an even worse impression on Tony than he has already. “No, the events do not change but how they are perceived should be. You should not have acted the way you did, that is obvious, but you do not tell a man intent on self-destruction so large it will take everyone around him down with him to go ahead. And you certainly do not assume that that one night is all that man is despite six years of information that suggested the opposite,” he says, throwing his hands up in frustration.
“Really? Because the highlights of the next few years include me blowing up all my suits and almost killing my girlfriend in the meantime, nearly ending the world with yet another thing I built, losing JARVIS, getting all my friends arrested, and recruiting a child soldier. Out of curiosity why the hell would you assume Natasha was the reckless stupid one?” he asks. The same argument the Avengers reiterated, T’Challa notices. He wants to wring their necks but that would be rude.
Instead he focuses on showing Tony a different perspective. “You did not harm Pepper, Aldrich Killian did. You built those suits so fast and in such abundance that it became considerably obvious that it was a reaction of PTSD from New York. When you recognized the futility of the coping mechanism you reacted the same way you did with alcohol. You made an effort to rid yourself of the compulsion in an admittedly dramatic way. You stopped that behavior and focused on a new project, the Ultron project. Wanda then triggered all your worst fears and of course you were interested in building something to help. But ultimately all you did was run a program and judging a man for the consequences of his actions is senseless when there was no way that man could have predicted that outcome. And no one blames Bruce Banner despite being just as guilty. You did not throw your friends in jail, their breaking the law did. And the child with the webs, that… was not wise. Your actions do not exist in a vacuum and I am sick of people treating them as if they were. If they insist you take responsibility for your actions they should have the common decency to do the same,” he says.
It was only fair, only logical really. He was annoyed with the Avengers and annoyed with the shoddy leadership of Steve Rogers. A good leader knows that everyone makes mistakes, himself included. A good leader also knows that singling out a single person for their actions when letting everyone else do those same actions would cause a rift in the team for what T’Challa considered obvious reasons. A good leader knew to listen and learn, and to look at the reasons why things were happening rather than administering a harsh judgment. A good leader knew to step back if he was too close to a problem. More than that a good leader knew when to recognize that someone needed help and Tony Stark has been all but shrieking for help only to have damn near everyone in his life ignore him, or worse, ridicule him for it. And now Tony has heard this argument thrown unfairly in his face so often that even he believed it. That was unfair and it was cruel.
Tony looks up at him for a long moment, seemingly gauging the situation. “You don’t believe what they’re saying,” he says, states, despite it being a question.
“No, I do not. I have asked for information and gotten lies, I have confronted them about those lies only to get more lies, I am about to confront those lies and I’ll likely get more lies. Every time they have given me information they have conveniently left out details that suggested they had pieces of blame in your actions too, like conveniently not mentioning that Wanda invaded your brain and triggered your worst fears before Ultron. They accept all the behaviors they call you out on with each other, making it clear to me that the problem they have is with you, not your behavior. If they did not like you the least they could have done was be honest about it, but instead they act as if they are standing on a moral high ground looking down at you. Then they act wounded and hurt when you do not trust them just as they do not trust you. When you treat someone badly you do not act is if they have wronged you. You acknowledge your mistakes and begin to change that behavior, it is not a difficult thing to do!” he says even though that is only half true.
Modifying behavior was difficult, but when your actions harmed someone else it was important to change them. The Avengers expected Tony to change everything about himself to suit their needs and yet they could do the same things with no backlash. They expected Tony to change his behavior when he hurt people but did not change theirs when they did the same. It was hypocritical and nonsensical, the reason Tony did not trust them or talk to them was clear. They treated him as a problem to be solved instead of a human being and unfortunately T’Challa fell into the same trap.
“You… think they’ve wronged me?” Tony asks, frowning as if this was a confusing thing to understand.
“Yes, I do. You did not trust the government and were subsequently attacked for it, but when Steve and Natasha did the same it was fine. Had Steve spoke to you instead of making assumptions about you perhaps you would be on the same page. Steve can keep secrets and lie about things, but when you do it the behavior is a problem. Wanda can work for HYDRA and participate in mass world destruction purposefully but when you and Banner accidentally create a genocidal AI Banner receives no blame and you are heavily shamed. Steve tells you to listen to people and trust them so you do with the Accords and that was wrong too. You cannot win and they wonder why you always fail! It is cruel,” he says softly, shaking his head. “And I am so, so sorry that I have done the same things and expected you to be forgiving too. That was unfair of me, and it was thoughtless of me to not consider how you would have felt about my actions.”
“I… um… thank you?” Tony says, almost asks really, as if this situation was so foreign to him that he was confused by it. That made T’Challa’s blood boil.
“No need to thank me, I am simply doing what needed to be done. You do not owe me gratitude because I have admitted that I have made a mistake,” he says. No one was owed that contrary to what many people thought. “A good leader knows when to admit he is wrong.” Something that Tony’s team needed to learn.
Tony’s lips twitch up some, “yeah, but a great leader does something about it.”
*
He had no idea what to make of T’Challa. First off he never once wavered from his stance that Tony had been wronged, minus pointing out the obvious when he said that bringing Peter into his messes was not wise. He seemed to see the hypocrisy of the Avengers, of Steve in particular even if it was Natasha he started with. But more than that he actually apologized for being wrong. There were no excuses, no explanations, no trying to absolve himself of responsibility, just a flat out apology. It wasn’t like Steve’s letter and Howard’s bullshit video, both claiming that they had faith in him, cared, when neither one even made an effort to say that they liked him let alone much else. Even T’Challa could see that the Avengers all had a problem with him, not the things he did, and that no matter what he did he never seemed to get it right.
Which brought him to his current dilemma. Part of him wanted to give T’Challa a chance, it seemed like he would be… good maybe, not like the others. But he thought that about Pepper too. She always had had an understanding of him that no one else did, Rhodey too, and even though Rhodey had his moments the second he started dating Pepper everything went wrong. It was like she suddenly expected him to be someone else, someone better suited for her and he got it. Yeah, he’s a handful and a half, but she already knew that about him when she got into this. And he tried, oh god did he try to change things but Pepper wanted more than he was willing to give. She knew he was Iron Man and maybe she couldn’t have predicted the long-term effects of that, and maybe she didn’t know she couldn’t handle that, but it wasn’t something he was willing to change for anyone. It was unfair of her to ask, demand really, and then act as if he was the one that was wrong.
So maybe T’Challa seemed fine now, but how long would that last? At least with the Avengers he knew, at least somewhere, that things were bound to end badly. Natasha invaded his life, Steve hated him, Bruce… was actually okay, Clint didn’t like him, Thor strangled him that one time, Sam didn’t know him, and he was sure Wanda never stopped blaming him for her parents’ deaths. And that last one was at least fair, but the rest of them were relationships that were made to break. Rhodey, even with his occasional moments of misunderstanding, was the only one who got him. Pepper used to be that person but then being in a relationship basically fucked them both up and it was like they didn’t even know each other anymore. This was why he avoided the damn things to begin with, he’s seen it happen over and over, people start to date and one expects the other to grow a new personality and change everything for them. He didn’t want that again with anyone, Avengers included.
“What has you thinking so hard?” a familiar voice asks. Shuri sits down beside him on the lawn, tilting her head in question.
“Your brother,” he says honestly. He didn’t know what to make of this situation and realistically he knew exactly how it was going to end, the way damn near everything with him ended- badly.
“That is unfortunate,” she says, laughing softly and Tony snorts out some laughter too.
“Tell me about it. I don’t really know what to do here, if anything,” he admits. It wasn’t the kind of thing he was used to, most of the time he always had a plan and a backup plan in case things went wrong. Of course those plans didn’t really end well, at least not recently, but he at least had something.
“Well,” Shuri says, “if you’ll let him he does not give up easily. It is one of his better qualities unless you are playing video games with him, then he will beat you every time though he at least keeps the gloating to himself. But enough about him, he is boring, you will learn. What about that friend of yours?” she asks, transitioning in perhaps the least subtle way Tony has ever witnessed. Considering his own horrible transitions that was impressive.
“Oh, Rhodey? Once I dared him to eat a strange fruit we found in the street and that’s how we found out that thing caused hallucinations,” he says. In hindsight it was hilarious, but when it was happening it was scary as hell and Tony had no clue what to do, mostly because he was tripping balls too.
“Funny, he told me you were the one to eat the strange fruit,” she says, grinning wide.
“Traitorous bastard. We both ate it because we were young and stupid and didn’t want to eat it alone,” he says. To this day neither one of them had any idea what happened, just that they wrote some really weird things down that made no sense.
“That is true friendship, both of you eating some strange fruit of unknown origins so the other does not have to go through it alone. That is admittedly a very stupid way to show support, but sweet in it’s own way. So, tell me some more,” she says. Tony grins and shakes his head, telling her about when he went missing in Afghanistan. It was probably the best story he had to date that fully encompassed everything that Rhodey was as a person and a friend. Everyone gave up on him, but not Rhodey, never Rhodey. And now, after everything, once again Rhodey was the only one left standing with him at the end if the day, just like always. He tells Shuri that too.