Chapter 8
“Tony cares for you quite a bit, you know,” Shuri tells Rhodey. It was impressive how loyal Tony was to the man, even when he talked of Rhodey’s mistakes. She also noticed that Tony was adamant that when Rhodey did something wrong he always had some blame in what happened between the two. It ran directly contrary to what the Avengers said about him and that was curious considering Tony admitted to his mistakes so often it was no less than habit.
Rhodey snorts, “he better given all the shit I have to put up with. He thinks that Taco Bell counts as actual Mexican food when it doesn’t even count as food at all. Seriously, we had a two hour debate on the subject and I finally gave up,” he says, waving an arm around.
She laughs, “well, he thinks your liking pineapples on pizza makes you a monster so I think you are even,” she says. Frankly they were both wrong, American food as a whole was just atrocious but she got the feeling that they might fight her on that. She figures she will let them get used to Wakandan food and listen when they gripe about their own cultures food when they go home.
“You know what, he just doesn’t see it like I do. Pizza is unhealthy, but if you put a fruit on it it becomes healthy, that way you cheat the system,” Rhodey says proudly, as if that actually worked.
“I do not think that counts,” she says.
“It counts,” Rhodey assures her.
“Well, I suppose I can rest easy knowing those chocolate covered raisins are healthy because of the raisin bit, then.” T’Challa gave her the side eye every time she ate them, concerned for her diet, but she knew about his love of American fast food and that was far worse than anything she would concern herself with. He should keep his looks to himself.
“See, exactly, if it’s got a healthy thing on it it’s obviously healthy. It’s science, so Tony can go on eating his unhealthy pizza and I’ll eat my perfectly healthy pizza and he can suffer,” Rhodey says, proud grin on his face. “In all seriousness though I know Tony cares, people might not see it, but they just don’t know how to look. People used to tell me all the time that he was a bad friend because he didn’t act like normal people do, but they have no idea how much he’s done for me. Maybe he’s an asshole sometimes, but when my mom died he left the business meeting he was in despite the fact that it could have ruined his reputation as new CEO of SI, got on a plane, planned the entire funeral, and paid for it too. I’ve had a lot of friends, none of them did anything that nice for me.”
“None of Tony’s friends spent any time looking for him when he went missing too, but you never stopped looking. Though I am curious as to how you found him,” she says. Tony did not give any details, looking visibly shaken by the small details he did give out, but he was adamant that Rhodey was one of the only reasons he was even alive.
“Yeah, that’s because Tony doesn’t have friends, he has leeches. It happens over and over again, Tony thinks someone cares and all they do is use him for his resources. I get that he isn’t the easiest guy to deal with, and god knows I’ve been at my wits end with him a few times, but people don’t even bother to look at him. All they see is the false bravado and arrogance and they think that’s all there is to him. That’s never been true.” Rhodey sounds and looks sad about this, upset on behalf of his best friend.
“So I have come to learn, and T’Challa too. He is not impressed with the way that Tony has been treated by his former teammates,” she says. Neither was she, really, they all chose to only see what they wanted and no partnership would ever survive such conditions. She was sure Tony had some biases too, of course he did, but she sympathized far more with him than with the rest of the Avengers. It helped that she has been in several of the positions he has been in. She, too, has played second fiddle to a near perfect figure of light and always got lost in his shadow, her social position was also privileged but isolating, and she also grew bitter and resentful of this. It irritated her that people did not often seem to understand people like her, even the near perfect T’Challa. Not that they made any effort to, instead choosing to be harsh and judgmental towards feelings they did not understand.
“Good, neither am I. I know he’s done things wrong but I also know that he has apologized and tried to atone for those things, he always does, even when we were young. You can’t expect someone to change if you’re never willing to see them in a new light, or in this case a light outside your own biased assumptions. Six years, six years Shuri, and they still haven’t seen past his defenses and half of them are supposedly brilliant strategists and superspies. That makes me wonder how bad at their jobs they must be if they aren’t willing to see things in a different light, or several different lights. It really pisses me off that Steve doesn’t get it, he spent years in the damn military knowing you have to look at things from every possible angle to make the best plans and he can’t even see past one man’s defense mechanisms? Unbelievable,” Rhodey says, clenching his jaw and shaking his head.
Ahh, of course Steve’s apparent biases would hit close to home for him being a military man himself. That was why the Dora Milaje were so upset with this, especially Okoye though she harbored a special dislike for Natasha Romanov. “A good leader knows never to assume that you are always right about someone, and a good leader is always willing to see someone in new ways if the situation calls for it,” she says, reiterating her father’s words to her from all those years ago. He may have favored T’Challa but she has always been the better judge of character and he knew it, but she always watched for signs that her assessment was wrong. People changed, hid things, conveniently lied when it would suit them best, and ignored their own shortcomings and flaws. Steve Rogers was a prime example of all of these things. Everyone was human, no matter how good or bad, and if a person was willing to own up to their mistakes, truly own up to them, it said far more about their character than the mistake itself.
So far all of her evidence pointed to Tony being a hasty decision maker, but one that was always willing to admit that he did something stupid and learn from it. Sometimes he did not do a good job, but he was only human, she did not expect him to be perfect and no one else should either.
“A good leader also knows when he’s too close to a situation and when to step away. Bucky Barnes proved that Steve Rogers does neither one of those things and it floors me that he has the audacity to judge Tony. So Tony isn’t perfect, and he never will be, but he also doesn’t pretend like he is, not anymore. And to be honest I’m not sure he ever believed any of his own boasting.” Rhodey looks frazzled and annoyed, offended on the behalf of his friend but more than that he looked worried about him. Tony was worried about Rhodey too, concerned that recent events were affecting him in ways he was not necessarily willing to admit to himself yet. Tony was wise not to push Rhodey, that never went very well and people would not admit to their problems until they were ready, if they were ever ready.
“A good leader also knows when to admit to their mistakes and so far I have seen exactly one backhanded letter to suggest Steve Rogers is willing to do that,” she says. Tony reiterated the letter to her and the best she could muster was an eye roll.
“Yeah, well there’s a huge difference between ‘I’m sorry I hurt you’ and ‘I’m sorry you got hurt’. Tony knows the difference, Steve should take a lesson,” Rhodey says, shaking his head in anger. Shuri squeezes his shoulder gently, earning a small smile from the man.
*
Tony is angry with B’Tumba because he was being an idiot and he was refusing to listen to him. His father looks exasperated with him but he remains patient just like he always does. “T’Challa, it takes two people to create a fight, and it take two people to fix it,” he says, always spouting some wise comment. Usually it did not bother him but today it grated his nerves.
“I have tried, he refuses to listen,” he says in a harsh tone, irritated with his friend for not understanding his words. He was right and he did not see a reason why he should have to spend so long explaining himself, B‘Tumba should just accept that he was wrong.
“And you?” his father asks.
T’Challa frowns at that, “what is that supposed to mean?” he asks, confused as to what his father was getting at.
“Have you listened to B’Tumba?” he asks, looking at his son intently.
He scoffs, “of course I did,” he says quickly, how else was he supposed to figure out he was right?
For a moment his father does not respond, instead looking at T’Challa intently. This look meant that he has failed a test somehow but he had no idea what he had done to earn it. He only gets a few more moments before his father explains what he has done wrong. “You did not think before you responded. You seem quite sure you are correct, too sure if your good friend has started an argument about it with you. Perhaps B’Tumba is not correct but you should consider why he thinks he is and what that means for you. A good leader knows to listen to a counter argument whether or not they agree with it because it can both support why your own argument is correct, and sometimes it can disprove you initial theories. Never assume that you are right blindly, always be willing to change what you think,” his father tells him intently.
He leaves the room after that, giving T’Challa space to consider the words. His first instinct is to ignore them but he understands that this highlights the problems with his current line of thinking. Instead he takes a few moments to reconsider B’Tumba’s words before grabbing his coat and heading out the door to try and fix this.
Tony wakes up annoyed with some dude named B’Tumba for no real reason and he gets the feeling that T’Challa was annoyed with him for no reason too. It was funny, almost, how T’Chaka’s words also happened to highlight how stupid both Tony and Steve have been in the past. Tony knew he had a listening problem, he always has, but he was trying to work on it even if it didn’t always go well. And Steve… Tony had no idea what to make of him anymore and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to try anymore. When he was a kid he used to idolize Captain America, wanted to be just like him and he quickly realized he would never mean as much to anyone as Steve Rogers, least of all Howard. And then his childhood nightmare became his adult trauma and once again he found himself living in the shadow of Steve Rogers. He, for one, was fucking done with that.
But he had better things to do today than be annoyed at B’Tumba, especially since he didn’t even know who that was, or Steve. Actually he hadn’t seen any evidence they were even here despite him knowing T’Challa was hiding them somewhere. If he didn’t know any better he would wonder if T’Challa told them to stay away from him or something but he didn’t see much reason for T’Challa to do that. He shakes his head to clear it; he had what remained of the Accords to deal with and then a trip home to plan. There were a few things he needed to get done for Pepper and SI too, and god knew what Spideryouth was doing without him. Probably getting into all sorts of trouble and loving it like a proper fifteen year old.
He pulls himself out of bed somewhat slowly, his stupid ribs still hurt though far less than they had before. The stupid things hurt for over a month and two days with T’Challa in the general vicinity made them feel less like they were on fire constantly and more like they just hurt like hell. His chest, at least, stopped being tight as a whole so there was that. It would have bee nice if soul mate magic was long distance but no, of course it wasn’t. Not, he supposed, that it mattered now considering he was mostly going to figure out how not to piss of Wakanda doing the hero thing. Granted they never really got this far down into Africa so the countries in this general area were mostly safe but you never know, Vision made a good point about being a hero inviting people to challenge you.
Actually being talented at anything invited people to challenge you. His business, his academic work, his so called ‘love life’, which was more like his ‘sad one night stands’ life, his strong personality, all those things always drew someone looking to challenge him in. Hammer challenged his business or at least he liked to think he did, academics never really did do a good job disproving his theories, Pepper sufficiently challenged and almost beat his aversion to romance, and Steve plus the rest of the Avengers did a fine job challenging his personality. And there was that one very awkward time Hammer tried to challenge him at he hero thing when he really should have left the more capable Vankov to his supervillainy. Frankly Vankov was far better at it and he also spent a lot of Hammer’s money essentially trolling the guy into funding his own revenge plot. To this date Tony’s favorite villain was Vankov because although he might be a terrorist the guy had a pretty great sense of humor and objectively Tony appreciated it. What he did not appreciate was that time he almost took out little Tony. That was very not funny.
Vankov was at least the only one who ever went, sort of, for the family jewels. Too be fair everyone went straight to trying to murder him so maybe he should appreciate that Vankov was really only giving him a taste of what he could do. In another life if Howard hadn’t fucked the elder Vankov over Tony could have totally worked with Vankov the younger. They probably could have done some really cool things. But no, his idiot father ruined Vankov and stole all the credit for something he only half did and then his son decided for some reason Tony needed to pay for someone else’s mistakes. Actually, given that it was likely Obi who sold the fucking missile that killed Wanda’s family it seemed father figures screwing him over only to leave him with the emotional fallout and revenge plots was a pretty popular theme in his life. And people wonder why he has daddy issues.
With a shake of his head he sets the thoughts aside and wanders out into the hallways, somewhat unsure of where he was going but intent on getting these negotiations over with. He just wanted to get home, relax a little, and get a few things done before some villain inevitably ruined the peace. Unfortunately for him he didn’t need to wait until he got home for some asshole to ruin his peace.
“Hey, Stark,” a familiar voice says and he turns to find Clint barreling towards him. Tony full well expected Clint to stop and that was his first mistake, well, technically his second. So when Clint barrels into him full force he smacks into the wall behind him, gasping for breath as his ribs flair up in pain. “Don’t be such a fucking drama queen,” Clint snaps, still in Tony’s personal space, “that didn’t even hurt.”
“Glad to know we share a pain level,” he grits out, left arm wrapped around his ribs.
“Fuck you,” Clint snaps, clearly not as pleased with Tony’s sass as he himself was. “Stay the hell away from my family.”
“Fine, next time I’ll let HYDRA kill them all so you can blame me for that too,” he quips, earning a sharp poke to the ribs from Clint, who seemed to have figured out he was wounded. Tony was impressed with his sleuthing skills seems how he was in no pain four seconds ago.
Clint opens his mouth to respond but someone else interrupts him, “you were instructed to stay away from Stark,” the sharp and commanding voice says. Okoye, Tony would recognize someone that severe anywhere given that it wasn’t a common tone for people to use. He expects Clint to move away because Okoye did not seem like the type of woman to cross but Clint has different ideas.
*
Okoye was not fond of Barton but she did not consider him much of a threat. She has dealt with people who had more skills and were more threatening as a child. Barton, however, makes the mistake of judging her the same way she judged him because he all but pounces on Tony, wrapping his hands around Stark’s freakishly white throat and squeezing. He does not do much, if any, damage because she pulls him off quickly, all but tossing him behind her. “Are you alright?” she asks Tony, who looks more unimpressed with this whole thing than anything. She was surprised that being attacked by a friend did not shake him but she supposed that this was not new to him either.
Her hearing alerts her to Barton moving so she turns to give him a warning glare, perfectly content to make sure he was not about to move any time soon if she so had to. “I’m fine,” Tony says, hand rubbing his throat. That seemed to be a common response from him and more often than not he was not actually fine. She gives him a look and he shrugs, “what? It isn’t like this is my first fight though it is probably the most pitiful on my part,” he says.
“Because you did not expect a friend to attack you,” she says and it is not a question.
“Clint is no friend, but I didn’t really expect him to try and choke me to death,” Tony says, sparing Barton an irritated glance. She resists the odd urge to laugh at how absurd Tony was acting and how underwhelmed he seemed by this whole situation. He had a thick skin and she liked that about him. He would be good at survival and anyone who could survive was impressive to her.
“Yeah well don’t think I won’t do it again,” Barton snaps. She wonders if he realizes that threatening the King’s soul mate was akin to threatening the King himself. She hoped not simply because she would like an excuse to properly punch him. Unlike the current Avengers the Dora Milaje had rules they were to adhere to in order to assure the safety of the King, themselves, and more importantly the people of this country. So far Barton was only slightly over the line given that he did not do Tony any actual damage.
“What is going on here?” T’Challa asks, choosing the correct moment to step onto the scene. Okoye steps aside to let T’Challa handle the situation from here and in hindsight she could see why that was a stupid decision on her part. Barton leaps at Tony, hands outstretched, and she snatches him with an arm around his neck far before he can get anywhere close to Tony. She chastises herself mentally for being stupid enough to have stepped out of Barton’s way when he literally just stated that he would try and attack Tony again. She should have remembered that not everyone held as much respect for her King as she herself did. T’Challa, for his part, looks livid but he turns to Tony first.
“Are you alright?” he asks, scanning Tony’s body for wounds. He would find none aside from the previous injury to his ribs, which Barton seems to have exacerbated, she already checked him.
“I’m fine,” Tony says, his arm still wrapped around his ribs and he still looks underwhelmed by the situation. Okoye considers her options with the still squirming Barton. She could easily knock him out, despite his fighting her hold his strength was no match at all for her own, she could simply hold him back as she was doing now or…
Or she could simply let him go and let T’Challa punch him instead. It would make him look good, protecting his soul mate, and Barton was no real threat to T’Challa. They have already faced down and he came out more than on top, plus she was not enhanced like the King, if she could hold him back he certainly could. She did not like playing her King like this but she liked Barton less so she lets him go knowing he would be too much a fool to wonder why someone with her level of training would ever do something so stupid. She already made one mistake; perhaps he assumed she made another. Or, more likely, he simply did not think at all.
So Barton leaps for Tony and she watches as T’Challa feels the change in the air around him, noting the new sounds indicating a threat, and turns with his hand half raised. When he registers the threat, far before Barton seems to have even noticed that T’Challa has noticed, his hand lifts higher, following through on the swing he half started. The blow lands, obviously, crashing into Barton’s face hard enough to send him considerably off course. He smacks into the floor hard, his head bounding as he goes and Okoye finds the sound satisfying. T’Challa gives her a look and she shrugs, “he escaped,” she says simply. The look on his face suggests that he did not believe that whatsoever but Tony’s laugh draws his attention away.
“That was awesome, you should do it again,” Tony says, grinning. Okoye allows herself a small smile for a job well done. Now her King looked better in the eyes of his soul mate, at least one of the Avengers now knew there was a limit to T’Challa’s diplomacy and patience, and no one got hurt in the process. She did not count Barton.
Barton shuffles some and T’Challa turns to him quickly, “you best stay down, Barton,” he says in cool, brisk tone that suggested he was not to be tested. Barton was smart enough to listen.
*
Rhodey had to admit punching Barton in the face looked pretty good for T’Challa and he got why Tony was happy about it. If Rhodey didn’t have a chair holding him back he would have marched his ass straight up to Barton and punched him in the face himself for ever using his injury as a weapon against Tony. He wasn’t a fucking tool for Barton to use as a pointed barb against a man he disliked, he was a goddamn person and he did not appreciate being reduced to a snide comment. But he was still skeptical of the guy, of how this whole thing with Tony would play out. In an ideal world he would have agreed with Tony and supported him in his decision to not to have anything to do with T’Challa but Tony has always been a special snowflake so of course he had to have one of those weird ass bonds that did cool shit.
Well, Rhodey had to admit dreaming someone else’s memories is actually not that cool but the healing thing was, and whatever else the bond might do. There were a lot of strange accounts of soul mates being able to do weird things, a lot of it was considered impossible, but after his best friend started flying around in a mechanized tin can saving the world from aliens Rhodey’s disbelief was suspended some. And it was obvious that T’Challa was some kind of enhanced, he wasn’t sure anyone knew how that might effect a bond if it had any effect at all. Tony obviously healed faster in T’Challa’s presence if his not being as careful with his movements was any indication. Who knows what else they might discover about the bond over time, assuming that Tony stuck around.
He might have assumed that Tony would leave and never come back but this was Tony, the man was too curious for his own good and no matter what he said he was a dreamer. At some point he would give in either out of the hope that maybe things with T’Challa would work out or to see exactly what kind of bond they had. Rhodey would be there for him either way but if he had to pick up the pieces of yet another relationship gone wrong he wasn’t going to be impressed. As it was he wasn’t much happy with Pepper, who seems to have forgotten that she and Tony are no longer together so her unsolicited opinions should be kept to herself. Hell, even if she was still with Tony Rhodey would be giving their dynamic some serious side eying.
Tony, of course, accepted it because he barely knew what a relationship looked like without abuse, but Rhodey was not very impressed with her at the moment. She used to have a decent understanding of Tony and he found it odd that she seemed to prefer him back when he was an uncaring jackass trying to be Howard Stark instead of himself. He would have assumed that, like literally the entire world, she would have preferred him once he started to figure out that he was not Howard and he never needed to be. All that rediscovering himself, all that work he did on trying to understand himself and the world around him, and she acted like it was a bad thing or something. Or maybe she expected him to change more or something, either way her assuming he was going to essentially become a different person to suit her needs when he already changed into a completely different person was confusing and irritating.
It was a running theme throughout Tony’s life too. Howard wanted him to be Steve of himself, Pepper wanted him to be god knows who, The Avengers all wanted him to be Steve, half the world wanted him to be Steve, even Rhodey was somewhat embarrassed to admit that he’s spent too much time wishing Tony was someone else too. The worst thing about this, though, was that even Tony wanted him to be someone else and that broke Rhodey’s heart. Then enter T’Challa, who is something of a wildcard right now and neither Rhodey or Tony knew what to make of him. In the end it was Tony’s opinion that mattered the most but that didn’t mean Rhodey wasn’t worried about him.
“Colonel Rhodes,” someone says and Rhodey half turns to find T’Challa walking over. He guessed it was only a matter of time before he ran into the man for more than a few seconds at a time but that didn’t mean he was impressed with it.
He inclines his head slightly, “your Highness,” he says somewhat stiffly.
“Has your stay been comfortable?” T’Challa asks. Rhodey scans his face in an attempt to gather what his intentions were but all he got was sincerity. From what he’s learned about the guy from Shuri that wasn’t much of a surprise.
“Tony’s doing fine,” he says in way of a real answer.
This does not escape T’Challa, earning him a raised brow, “did you expect something else?” he asks.
“I expected more of the same from Tony, instead I got something a little different,” he says. He knows the answer is vague and from the tilt of T’Challa’s head he isn’t lost on Rhodey avoiding his questions. Not that he was being subtle about it he supposed, too much time with Tony always made him just a little more blunt than usual.
“Is that… a good thing?” T’Challa asks, frowning some. Rhodey looks back out over the pond he was sitting in front of. Tony told him the water was bright blue and that the fish in it were a vibrant orange but honestly Rhodey barely even noticed the fish against the slightly darker shade of grey of the pond. Apparently the entire estate is stunning but all Rhodey saw was a lot of leaves and cats. It didn’t look much more impressive than Tony’s own mansion though Tony informed him color made all the difference. He wondered if it did actually, make a difference that was, because his own colorless world didn’t make much of a difference to him. It was a pain in the ass to cook sometimes but he figured it out eventually via sense of smell and working out how the food changed via the subtle differences in grey.
“To be honest I’m not sure,” he tells T’Challa. He guessed he was going to have to wait and see how this all worked out for Tony in the end. So far things were going well minus Clint’s little freak out. But this was Tony; god knew how the hell this was going to end up long term. He had assumed he and Pepper would have lasted, they knew each other for years, she’s seen Tony at his worst, they understood one another, but the second they threw romance into the mix that went to hell in a hand basket. Their expectations for each other became completely different and he never did figure out if either one of them thought to have a conversation about it, Tony would avoid doing that for as long as humanly possible.
“Is… is he alright?” T’Challa asks slowly, like he’s unsure if Rhodey would answer the question.
Rhodey lets out a harsh snort, “he’s lost near everything he loves several times over, what do you think?” he says perhaps more harshly than necessary. It was true though, Tony has lost everything and some of that was his own fault but a lot of it wasn’t something he could control. Honestly Rhodey sometimes wondered how the hell he could get up in the morning. It… it was hard for him, sometimes, and he accepted that he was never going to use his legs like he used to and that was okay. Well, it wasn’t really okay but it was permanent so he had little choice but to deal with it. Considering his alternative was death this was infinitely better than that, even if his inability to flip himself over in the night drove him fucking nuts.
But it was still hard sometimes and sometimes he didn’t really feel like doing much of anything at all. There was nothing wrong with him, all things considered he was actually quite healthy but he wasn’t really happy and he didn’t get why. He survived an accident that should have killed him, Tony was more than willing to help him out as much as possible, and he didn’t even have to worry about medical care costs. Even with the injury sometimes he could wiggle his toes and he could walk with extreme assistance. There was no reason for the strange feeling of emptiness and… it wasn’t sadness really, honestly it wasn’t really anything and that was the problem. It made things hard when even the simplest task seemed to take so much energy and seemed so daunting. Tony knew more than he let on but he didn’t say something for some reason and Rhodey would really like to know what the hell Tony made of his strange lack of energy and desire to stay in bed all day avoiding the world.
Compared to Tony he hadn’t even lost that much, though there were some things Tony had that he never had to lose to be fair. But Tony still got out of bed every day, still managed to get things done, in excess even, and at the end of the day he still saved the world even though most days he couldn’t even save himself. That was a kind of strength Rhodey didn’t even know existed until very, very recently. When they were younger Tony mentioned a feeling something like what he was feeling now and he had dismissed it, not understanding what the hell Tony was even talking about. Rhodey remembered after New York too, how Tony panicked and lost his mind and Rhodey hadn’t understood that either. There was nothing wrong with him, why the hell had he been freaking out? And that ‘help me’ drawing on that paper he was supposed to sign for that kid. He still didn’t know what the hell happened there but that was probably one of the most terrifying things he has ever seen and he’s spent a lot of time in war zones.
He wanted to talk to Tony about it, ask what the hell was going on with him but he didn’t know how, especially when he’s spent a lot of time scoffing at Tony when he acted like this. There was nothing wrong with him so what was happening? There was no reason for this, no real reason for Tony to do half the things he did either. He remembered once, when Tony was in his late twenties and doing something stupid as usual Rhodey asked why he always fucked things up. Tony said that he had to and Rhodey had rolled his eyes, at his wits end with Tony’s shitty behavior and he told him he didn’t have to do anything, that he chose to. Now he wondered if there was something more to that statement that he didn’t understand at the time.
“I have no idea how he is still functioning. Sometimes I cannot bring myself to leave my bed for hours, weighted down by grief for my father and he has lost so much more than I ever will. He is the kind of strong I wish to be,” T’Challa says quietly. Rhodey looks over at him in surprise and T’Challa is frowning at the pond in confusion, just a touch of awe hitting his features. Yeah, Rhodey got that too. Honestly since the accident he has a whole new appreciation for his best friend.