Chapter 9
When T’Challa says he wanted to talk about the Clint issue, which Tony didn’t even consider an issue, the guy just had a freak out over nothing, he didn’t expect T’Challa to deport the guy. Actually he wanted to deport all of the Avengers because he must be feeling particularly vindictive or something. “No,” Tony says, pressing his fingers to his temples, his plans needed them here and out of the public eye, damnit! God knows what the hell they would all go about doing if they weren’t currently trying to avoid drawing attention to T’Challa, who was some next level nice in Tony’s opinion.
T’Challa’s eyebrows fly up to his hairline, “what?” he asks, clearly confused by Tony’s reaction.
“I need them here until I can get them acquitted,” Tony says, “I can’t count on them to not ruin my efforts with the courts if you don’t hold their leashes.” They’ve all already done a bunch of stupid shit, himself included, and people were really annoyed with what was essentially American imperialism and they wanted control of their boarders. Steve went against that hard and while Americans were happy to defend him the rest of the world was both pissed and terrified. Given the things Tony knows that he has done, let alone the rest of the team, he isn’t really that surprised. Actually he was surprised it took the world this long to get fed up with being invaded every ten minutes because there was a new HYDRA base, a new villain, or a new lead on Bucky. Villains aside, because those were more of an emergency type deal, people didn’t really like being left out of the loop of what was happening in their own countries, even the governments were running scared.
Tony’s been dealing with governments his whole life, they’re all a bunch of power tripping assholes (not unlike himself, if he was honest), they didn’t run scared from a lot. But they were running scared from the Avengers; intent of shutting them out and Tony couldn’t let that happen. They had no idea that the Avengers were necessary and thanks to everyone rolling their eyes at him and not acknowledging what he saw in that fucking wormhole no one else knew what was coming either. So fuck the Avengers for that but hey, every troll had its use, and Tony was damn intent he was going to make sure his trolls were fucking useable.
“I… why do you want them acquitted? To be quite honest I am not certain I want them acquitted and I chose to take them in,” T’Challa says, brow creased in bewilderment.
“Look, if this was some bullshit situation in which they fucked up I’d be happy to let them burn because frankly they deserve it. They’ve been pretty cruel to me since the get go, I mean Natasha invaded my life and expected me to be totally cool with the whole thing, Steve made sure I knew I’d never be as good as him from day one, Thor strangled me that one time-”
“What? T’Challa all but snarls.
“Chill, it was one time and to be fair that Ultron thing was stupid of me. Anyways, Clint hates me and he’s next up on the ‘strangled Tony that one time’ list. Lang doesn’t like me much, which is weird considering I didn’t even know his name until he was sprung from the RAFT but whatever. Wanda has some pretty decent reasons to hate me but still, it doesn’t exactly foster team spirit. Wait, where was I going? Oh, right. So the Avengers are pretty much the worst thing to have ever happened to me and trust me I hate them for it, boy do I hate them for it. But they aren’t the worst thing that has happened to the rest of the world and I can’t just consider myself, much as I would like to,” he says. Ideally he would let T’Challa do whatever he wanted but there was more to consider than him being strangled, and he was fine so he didn’t think it was a big deal anyways. He’s been through worse. Like that time Vanko just about took out his nether regions.
“I think the rest of the world would disagree with your assessment, Tony, and frankly I am done being lied to. I have been nice enough to hold them here despite the risk to my country and myself, I have given them every opportunity to tell the truth, and they continue to insult me and lie to my face. And then, after specifically telling Steve to keep the Avengers well out of your way I find Barton trying to strangle you. For the second time, no less. I am sorry but I have been extremely lenient, especially considering they have no real right to the resources I have been providing them. I see no reason to let them remain if they cannot treat me with basic decency and respect let alone you. Is there something you are seeing that I am not?” T’Challa asks and Tony can’t help but think how easy it would have been to make that condescending. T’Challa doesn’t sound condescending at all though; instead he looks at Tony intently because he is genuinely interested in his response.
“Technically no. Nothing you’ve said is wrong but this is bigger than you and what you don’t like, and what I don’t like for that matter. The world needs a team of people with enhanced abilities because that’s the only way we’re going to deal with what’s coming and honestly who even knows what alien biology does. It’s only a matter of time before they show up and Vision has made a point. Things here have been escalating for some time now and it’s only a matter of time before those aliens make a return and they had shit I’ve never seen before. How are we supposed to prepare for a threat we can’t even assess? Point is, the world needs the Avengers even if the two of us could go without. I need to get them acquitted and as much as I don’t want to I need to make sure they don’t continue pissing off the world so that they’ll actually take the help. Rogers should have signed the damn Accords like he was going to,” he mumbles.
He had been so close and then no, that whole Wanda thing came up and admittedly that was stupid. He should have talked to her about that first and to be fair he hadn’t told Vision to keep it from her, just that he was and why, but he couldn’t blame Vision for assuming he should do that too. The guy was less than a year old; all things considered he was doing really well for being a baby. But that wasn’t a reason not to sign the Accords and honestly he had no idea why Steve even conflated the two at any point. They were still in disagreement about Wanda being a child though; Tony would argue she didn’t really have a chance to be a child no thanks to himself. She was still old enough to fight, in Steve’s eyes and Tony had been reliably informed that they were better than his own, than she was no child. In his opinion no one who joined a terrorist organization was a kid even if he was sure that she never really bought the HYDRA ideology. But that was some extreme means to her ends and he felt that maybe they should talk about that.
“What did you say?” T’Challa asks, drawing Tony’s attention back to him.
“About what? Because I said a lot,” he points out.
“About the Accords, you said that Steve almost signed them. What stopped him?” he asks intently. Tony reiterates the Wanda thing and T’Challa frowns, “those two things do not have anything in common, doe he truly believe that if you’re judgment was compromised on one issue it is compromised on all issues? Does he truly believe anything is that simple? Though he was right about that being a stupid decision, I understand why you did what you did, but you had no right to make that decision without her consent,” T’Challa says and Tony sighs, nodding.
It kind of hurt to see T’Challa’s surprise but he guesses it’s somewhat warranted. “I know, and every time I do something like this, make decisions for people instead of asking, it ends badly. Every time. Wanda was no exception and that was pretty dumb of me, I’m sure she probably would have been happy to stay put or at least lay low until the public calmed down. She could have used the time for training, that would look good to the public and be beneficial to her too. But instead I made a stupid decision in haste just like I always do and just like it always does it blew up in my face so why the hell Steve thinks doing the exact same thing I’ve been doing for years and failing at would work I have no idea. Especially since he’s criticized me every fucking step of the way but hey, I guess it doesn’t count if he does it,” Tony says bitterly. Steve was the one who taught him that he was going about things in the wrong way, Tony changes his tune and then suddenly everything Steve taught him is wrong and he was doing the wrong thing and the team was on his side despite that he was singing Tony’s old tune. Fucking bullshit it what it was.
T’Challa takes a deep breath in through his nose and blows it out his mouth. “And you recognize that that was a stupid decision. Of course you do, you rarely look back on your actions blindly even if it takes you time to see where you went wrong. I looked through all your S.H.I.E.L.D records, by the way, and the rest of the team’s. Did you know that you apologize for your wrong doings three times more than the others, second being Steve, who still apologizes far less than you. What is interesting about this fact is that you’re perceived as apologizing then times less than the member of the team who apologizes the least, Clint, likely because he does not often deal with the public. You also deviate from Steve’s plans roughly as much as the others and yet the entire team thinks you deviate from ninety percent of Steve’s instructions. That confuses me, particularly when combined with the fact that they repeat every single one of your behaviors that your teammates find problematic in you habitually with no consequence. Explain that,” T’Challa says more rhetorically than anything but Tony answers anyways.
“To be fair I am a handful, and an ass. It isn’t like I’m known for playing well with others,” Tony points out. He’s never been good with the whole ‘team’ thing because he didn’t give a damn if there was no ‘I’ in team, there was an ‘I’ in win and that’s what he was there to do. It hadn’t made him much likable over the years and honestly he was glad for it now, his friends sucked. Minus Rhodey, he was just a little lost in his own issues right now and that was okay. He’s been there and he was more than happy to be there when Rhodey needed him.
“Maybe you are an ass, I have seen little evidence for it, but that does not change the math. You cannot possibly be a handful, as you described yourself, when you do not act much differently than your teammates. The only exception is apologizing more and I hardly see how that makes you an ass. I have seen your old interviews and your new ones, you may have been a handful and an ass in the past but you are not the same person now and your team clearly has not picked up on the change,” T’Challa tells him in a firm tone, one that suggests he knows he’s right and he’ll fight you on it, but he wasn’t being an ass about it either.
“Fine, they suck. But you can’t kick them out until they won’t be detained in some other bullshit facility. And FYI I am so mad, these people are being charged with international treason and the public in America is more interested in my one-night stands. Can you believe that? The Avengers are being charged with international crimes and they care what I’m doing with my dick? For real? I feel like a priority change is needed,” Tony says and he’s so caught up in his annoyance at the American public, and a few other countries too, that he almost misses the flash of hurt across T’Challa’s face. “What? I doubt you waited around for me, your one and only,” he says and he realizes just then he actually had no idea what Wankandan customs around soul mates were and that it was entirely possible that he was wrong about that. “You… didn’t, right?” he asks slowly.
T’Challa rolls his eyes, “what decade do you believe Wakanda is in? Of course I did not wait around for you, that is absurd. For all I knew my bond with you was not sexual in nature and the wait would have been useless and frustrating for everyone. I still did not expect that comment,” he says, looking away.
“Well I have a sex life, one people care more about than the Avengers apparently and I’m annoyed about it. Feel free to sleep around, I don’t really care,” Tony says without thinking it through. That earns him another hurt look but Tony didn’t have time to explain his views on sex to someone, namely that it was a pretty meaningless act on its own. For all he knew he and T’Challa had fundamental differences of opinion on that alone let alone everything else in Tony’s life. God, why did anyone think soul mates were easy? This has been the opposite of easy every step of the way.
*
T’Challa is irritated and objectively he know that he should not be dealing with this in such a bad mood, it would not make him very forgiving, but this was not something he could help. This was the kind of situation that was to be dealt with now, even if he was not completely on board with Tony’s plan. It was important to respect Tony’s opinions and thoughts though, so he would try his way and see how that went even if he did not necessarily like it. The plan did, however, remove the Avengers from his home so Tony clearly considered his feelings in all of this.
The Avengers sit around the table much like the last time they did this, all looking somewhat confused like last time too. That only serves to annoy him more; did they not consider strangling a former teammate to be a problem? He certainly did even if it was not Tony that was the target. “Can I ask why we’re here?” Steve finally asks, ever the leader of the group. T’Challa resists to urge to rip his own hair out in frustration at the statement.
“The fact that you are still in this country is a miracle and you can thank Tony Stark for that, despite his being strangled by your teammate. I specifically asked you to keep yourself and your teammates away from Tony and instead I found one of them trying to murder him. I have been gracious to you, I did not have to take you in even if I owed Sargent Barnes help, and I certainly did not owe any of you after you repeatedly lied to my face. You may be confused on why trying to kill someone for no apparent reason is frowned upon but I am not. I intended to deport you but Tony has asked me to house you until he can get the charges against you dropped. Consider yourselves lucky that I have agreed, though you are being relocated and Clint is being deported. So not look offended, Wakanda does not like when people break laws any more than the rest of the world and Tony has graciously offered to send you undercover with your family. That is far more than you deserve,” T’Challa tells him, unable to keep himself from making the petty jab.
That gets the team’s attention, “I need to talk to Tony,” Steve says quickly and T’Challa frowns.
“Why? He was the one who convinced me to keep you here, I am not certain what you think speaking to him will achieve,” T’Challa says bluntly.
“You can’t kick me out,” Clint blurts out and T’Challa raises an eyebrow at this.
“I am the king, theoretically I could have you killed if I so chose. I would not because that is barbaric, but I am in charge of my country and I do not see the value in sharing resources with people who are dishonest and choose to spend more time insulting my intelligence than trying to work with me. As I said, if I had my way you would all be removed but Tony has convinced me otherwise,” he says. He did not like it but Tony made a reasonable argument, T’Challa felt the panic Tony felt when he recalled that incident. That fear was not the unfounded kind and after the first time… he felt it was unwise not to take Tony seriously, even if his suspicions never became a reality. That was not the kind of thing T’Challa was willing to take a chance on.
“With all due respect, your Highness, Tony is not as perfect as you think he is,” Steve says slowly. T’Challa recognizes the stance he adopts and he finds it almost insulting that the good Captain thought he could negotiate his way out of this. T’Challa wonders if he realizes he is Captain America, not Captain Wakanda or Captain World. T’Challa has been fair, or at least he thinks so, so they should accept a fate that they created almost entirely themselves.
“He never said Tony was perfect,” Sam points out, “just that he’s done with our shit and you can’t deny that none of us look very good from his perspective. There’s shit that’s come out that I didn’t know about and I’ve technically been an Avenger for a year. I mean come on, you essentially left Tony to die in Siberia and I get why but that’s harsh, man. Plus you lied about to T’Challa, not to mention everything else and then Clint. We aren’t exactly in a place to complain.” Well, T’Challa thinks, at least this particular Avenger seemed to get the point.
“Why does Stark care though? I thought he wasn’t exactly fond of us?” Lang says, frowning in confusion.
“No one has said anything about Tony disliking us,” Wanda says slowly, “though that appears to be true if the king’s thoughts are to be trusted. Not that I am trying to invade your mind, thoughts just come to me sometimes,” she adds quickly.
“I understand that reading minds is like an extra sense to you, one that you cannot control and I accept that,” T’Challa tells her. He may not have much trust or faith in her but her ability to capture stray thoughts was not something that was intended to be malicious or cruel, it was second nature to her, like his ability to smell Clint’s sweat. It would be unrealistic to ask her to completely temper her ability to connect to others’ minds.
“But to answer your question, Scott, Tony thinks the world needs us. The king does not agree,” she says, eyeing him wearily, like she expected fear. She should, they all should, they have done little to gain anyone’s trust at this point, Tony included until somewhat recently though that hardly erased his past.
Lang looks confused still but he chooses to move on, “okay but what does that have to do with him if he doesn’t even like us? Why bother defending us?” Lang asks. T’Challa is impressed, he assumed Lang was the dumb one of the team but it seemed he knew when to ask good questions.
“Because he has a plan to get you acquitted of your charges and back in action because he recognizes that disliking you is no reason to discriminate against you. Perhaps the rest of you could take note of his frankly quite noble actions,” T’Challa tells them. He should not be antagonizing them with rude jabs but he felt that was a true enough statement to lack an abundance of sting. It was no one’s fault but their own that the statement was the harsh truth.
*
Rhodey looks deeply uncomfortable so Tony sighs, “what is going on, man?” he asks.
“There better not be bugs on this ground,” Rhodey says, eyeing the grass skeptically. Tony rolls his eyes, here he went and planned a cool bro night hanging out in T’Challa’s huge back yard at night, hanging out under the stars like they used to when they were still in school. They used to get wasted and pass out in the back yard of one of Tony’s many estates but not before they had some weird and sometimes enlightening conversations. He thought it would be cool to recreate it but no, Rhodey was worried about the fucking bugs.
“Of course there’s bugs in the grass Rhodey, that’s where they live,” Tony says, watching as Rhodey made a panicked noise and he probably would have took off if he still had functioning legs. “Calm down, just because bugs live there doesn’t mean they’re on you. Relax, bugs have better things to do than harass some random asshole in the grass.”
“You better hope so or I will not be impressed. Wakanda probably has weird shit we don’t know about,” he says. Okay, so admittedly Tony didn’t think of that but in his defense he was pretty sure Wakandan bugs were no worse than American bugs. They were pretty universally useful and annoying, except for Australia’s bugs, that whole country needed to be set aflame to avoid death by giant fucking spider.
“You leave Wakanda alone, what have the bugs here done to you? Besides, we’re reliving cool college memories without all the shit that made us immature shits. That’s pretty cool,” Tony says.
Rhodey snorts, “so this was intentional. With you I never know if you’re remembering something consciously or subconsciously. It’s probably for the best that we forgo the alcohol and all that stumbling around drunk anyways considering you’re a recovering alcoholic, I’m on pain meds, and I no longer have functioning legs. I feel like that would just go terribly for everyone,” he says, making perhaps the shittiest joke in history.
“Yeah, that’s why I skipped all that stuff. I just thought it would be kind of fun to do that again, even if it wasn’t really exact.” It was one of the most intimate things Tony has done with another person, laying there confessing all his hopes and dreams and fears even if he mostly did it because he was drunk. But he missed it, that kind of intimacy with someone. He hasn’t had that since… well since the last time he did this with Rhodey years and years ago. There were things he shared with Pepper too but pulling an all nighter getting through paperwork with nothing but old Chinese food and coffee to fuel you was a different kind of intimacy. It wasn’t something he was ever going to get back either and he didn’t know how to feel about that.
“So, what’s on your mind? You’re weirdly quiet and it’s freaking me out because that means I have to think about all the creepy ass bugs that could be crawling into my ear to lay eggs or something equally creepy,” Rhodey says, shuddering.
“Wimp,” Tony accuses, “and I was thinking about Pepper. I miss her sometimes,” he says honestly. He didn’t miss people, that was his thing, he never got that invested. It was easier that way because every intimate or personal relationship he’s had has went to hell in a particularly fiery hand basket. His parents, Obi, Pepper, the Avengers, and now only Rhodey and the bots were left. He sort of counted Vision in that too because he was currently housing the guy and he liked him well enough, plus he technically counted as bots.
Rhodey remains silent for a long time after that, thinking over Tony’s response. “Don’t take this the wrong way man, but breaking up was for the best. I don’t know what the hell went wrong or who did what, but she expected way too much out of you. She expected you to be someone else and that wasn’t fair. Plus I think you only dated her because she was the safe option and that wasn’t fair to her either,” he says softly.
The safe option, something he wasn’t at all known for. But he could see where Rhodey got that given that he didn’t have to do much work getting to know Pepper or letting her know him. They’ve been working together for years, she already knew plenty about him and he knew her well enough. It cut out a lot of the shit he was uncomfortable with. He wondered if she knew that and maybe that’s why she wanted him to be someone else. To be fair he wouldn’t be happy with knowing that about his romantic partner either. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he says. He wished he wasn’t but Rhodey knew about these things so Tony trusted his word on it.
“Have you ever… you ever felt like everything is going wrong even when there’s no evidence of that? Like everything is fine, good even, but you still feel like everything is a mess and you don’t know how to clean it?” Rhodey asks after a long moment of silence.
“All the time. I don’t think I’ve ever known a time when I didn’t feel like I was falling on solid ground.” It used to confuse the hell out of him when he was young, people telling him he was privileged and lucky and that he should be grateful and all he could think was for what? Now he knew things weren’t as simple as kid him made them out to be but that feeling of despair never really left. He used to try and drown it out with booze and drugs and sex but then those things became the triggers to his problems so he replaced them with building things. But now that was the trigger to his problems and he didn’t know what to do. He was scrambling for purchase on a smooth surface covered in oil and everyone was yelling at him for not climbing faster. It was frustrating, especially when he could see that everyone else was doing just fine.
“Falling on solid ground, that sounds about right. What the hell even is that and how do you make it go away?” Rhodey asks, looking over at Tony with a worried expression on his face and oh, how do you look your friend in the eye and tell him that doesn’t go away? At least not for him anyways.
“I don’t know Rhodey, nothing I try works, all of it just makes it worse.” Build weapons, destroy the world, nearly destroy himself. Build a suit of armor to protect himself and the rest of the world too, watch as that crashes and burns just when you think everything is going great. Build a team of superheroes to help in world saving, fight with them so much you tear the team apart again, and to add insult to injury they never really liked you anyways. Nearly lose your best friend in the process, actually lose your girlfriend, discover your parents were murdered, get left behind to die in a winter waste land, have a whole mess of soul mate dropped into your lap. God knows he didn’t know how to deal with anything anymore, but he tried his best.
“I don’t think I can live like this,” Rhodey whispers, barely loud enough to hear. Tony reaches out and links his fingers through Rhodey’s.
“You’ve lived through literal wars, Rhodey, just because this one is in your mind doesn’t mean you won’t survive. That’s all you have to do.” Or at least that’s what he’s been telling himself all these years.