Chapter 11
Tony isn’t sure what wakes him, just that he suddenly felt nauseous and upset. But no, that feeling wasn’t his; he didn’t feel much more than annoyed at having been woken up from a reasonably deep sleep so…
He throws the blanket on his bed back and pads out to the hallway, looking around but not seeing much of anything. That didn’t mean much, he knew, because he happened to know that T’Challa now had Dora Milaje trailing him thanks to Clint’s stupidity. They were good at staying well out of his way though, if he hadn’t reluctantly agreed with T’Challa’s decision he never would have known they were there. That nauseous feeling comes back again and he frowns, wrapping an arm around his middle and wrinkling his nose. What the hell was T’Challa even doing? This had to be him; there was no other reason for him to feel like such shit if not for T’Challa doing… whatever he was doing.
Ignoring the nauseous feeling he had he presses on so he could go find T’Challa and solve the sick feeling he had so he could attempt to sleep again. Realistically he wouldn’t sleep, more like he’d stare at the ceiling for several hours before he finally got bored enough to write down the schematics to whatever project he’d been thinking about, but he could hope. The house is eerily silent without people bustling around in it and Tony remains unfamiliar with the hallways. He had no clue where T’Challa’s room was, probably a safety precaution or T’Challa not wanting him to get the wrong idea or something. He sort of follow his gut, ignoring how it was twisting in pain until he located a door he was somewhat certain was T’Challa’s.
“If he ever gets kidnapped you would be a useful tracker,” someone says from behind him, making him jump in surprise. He finds Okoye standing behind him with a wry smile on her face, regarding him with something he thinks is respect. Or maybe that was just some level of being impressed that he managed to track T’Challa down using soul mate bullshit alone. It was a useless skill if you asked him. What the hell kind of use could this have?
“That’s nice, but you’d probably still find him faster,” Tony says. “Can I go in or will that get me killed?” he asks, sparing Okoye a glance over his shoulder.
“If I had any interest in keeping you from T’Challa I would have made sure you came nowhere near his room,” she says, answering his question in a roundabout way. He nods and grits his teeth against the twist of his gut as he opens the door and lets himself into the room.
“T’Challa?” he calls, noting the empty bed. He follows the noise instead, finding the man curled up on the ground beside his toilet. “Aww, do you feel like shit too? I feel like ass,” he says in a bad attempt to joke. T’Challa lifts his head from its current position on his knees, giving Tony a bleary look through… tears? “Are… you okay?” he asks hesitantly. If T’Challa was feeling his stomach pain it wasn’t that bad and he was fairly certain he had a high pain tolerance.
T’Challa’s lip curl in disgust and for a fleeting moment Tony thinks this is it, this is the moment when he realizes the Avengers were right about him the whole time and he kicks Tony to the curb like everyone else but then he speaks. “Your father was disgusting,” he snarls with a shocking amount of force.
“…Oh,” Tony says softly, “what’d you dream?” There were so many memories that he could think of that would earn Howard that disgust and after seeing the way T’Challa’s own father treated him he didn’t want to have him see that. T’Chaka was a good man and a great father, T’Challa didn’t deserve to life through Tony’s horrifying memories of his own shitty example of a parent. T’Challa outlines the dream, drawing Tony’s attention back to him and he frowns at the description. “I don’t even remember that, or at least not that specific memory, they kind of all blur together after awhile.” There were plenty of times Tony heard ‘Stark men don’t cry’, which confused him because it implied that all other men did and what made them so different anyways?
The real men are made of iron thing came up often too, often enough that Tony had finally told him that even iron had its melting point. If Howard wanted him to be strong than he should have modeled him after vibranium, that was the strongest element in existence though there was some debate over adamantium being stronger. It was Tony’s professional opinion that it wasn’t, he’s tested it in Steve’s shield and it couldn’t cut though so that solved that debate. Howard hadn’t been impressed with his snark despite it being labeled ‘Stark snark’ by the media, meaning he got it from Howard, and smacked him hard for his efforts. It wasn’t the first or last time and at this point he was sort of thankful for it. It wasn’t like he got into a lot of fights as a kid; people were terrified of pissing off the great Howard Stark’s kid, but the abuse meant he could take a punch easy. Even if they came from a super soldier, if current events were any indication.
“Tony,” T’Challa says softly, turning his attention back to him again, “how often did things like that happen to you?”
He shrugs, “whenever I was home and people weren’t around, so every few months or so depending on the time of year. More in the summer when I was home a lot more, obviously,” he says. T’Challa places his hand over his mouth and pales considerably, which confuses Tony because he only answered the guy’s question.
After a moment T’Challa seems to gather himself, pulling his body straighter as he turns to face Tony. “Did you not hear yourself just now?” he asks softly, his eyes wide with concern.
“Uh, yeah, you asked a question and I answered it. What’s the big deal?” Sure, maybe the subject was a tad morbid but this was all year ago.
“I wondered why you were so unconcerned with Clint’s attack and it turns out that you are so used to being abused you talk about it as if it was as normal as the weather. People are not supposed to treat you this way, Tony,” T’Challa says urgently.
“It’s fine-” he starts but T’Challa cuts him off.
“No! It is not fine,” he nearly yells, “you deserve respect, and decency. Do not ever say the abuse you suffered was fine because it was not! No one should ever suffer so much that they talk about their abuse as if it is something normal and unavoidable. You deserve better than that,” T’Challa tells him fiercely.
Tony blinks in surprise, shocked that T’Challa even cared that much. He might have said something but his stomach decides that that was the time to remind him that he felt like shit and he ends up with his face in T’Challa’s toilet instead. T’Challa is sweet about it and pets his back while he vomits.
*
Shuri is all but rolling on the ground laughing when Rhodey finds her. T’Challa looks on with an irritated look on his face but this doesn’t seem to alarm Shuri much. “You… you gave your soul mate food poisoning!” she squeezes out between fits of laughter. That made one of them, Tony wasn’t impressed about this at all and Rhodey was suspicious of circumstances here. Clint already tried to off Tony once, for all he knew T’Challa was playing nice with Tony in an effort to kill him on behalf of the other Avengers or something. He didn’t really want to consider that option and neither did Tony but the man was more trusting than he should be. All it took was a few days and Tony went from being intent on never speaking to T’Challa again to all but eating out of the guy’s hand. Well, technically he did eat out of his hand- plate- and that was how he got into this situation but still.
Someone had to think of Tony and if his twenty five plus year friendship with Tony has taught him nothing it was that Tony Stark was never intent on making sure he didn’t get hurt. Half the time he went running towards the shit that hurt him in glee, like that time his idiot ass gave out his address to terrorists. He had been angry and panicked after what happened to Happy but that was no damn excuse. So Rhodey was intent on making sure this wasn’t what he thought it was for Tony’s sake. Better to do all this stuff now before Tony was too attached and got hurt, well, more hurt. There was no way his soul mate trying to kill him wouldn’t cause at least a little stress and he knew Tony well, everything hit him far harder than he let on. Back before all this bullshit with… with depression or whatever he used to roll his eyes at Tony, thinking he was being overdramatic. Tony was dramatic yeah, but Rhodey got the distinct feeling he wasn’t being dramatic about any of the panicking and that fear of failure me mentioned once.
Rhodey had scoffed at it then, Tony was fifteen and he was going into a Masters program, his bots were the best there was, even better than Howard’s, and his future was blinding it was so bright. But Tony had sat on his dorm bed frowning at it, telling him that the more success he had the harder it was going to be when he inevitably fell. Rhodey called him a moron, telling him that his fears were stupid because they were unfounded and he was all about evidence, right? Statistically speaking there was no reason to think a failure was coming. Tony told him that stats were bullshit when it came to feeling like that because it didn’t matter how well he did, only that he knew that he was going to crash and burn in a spectacular way someday. Worse still he seemed to think everyone was expecting him to fail and the media never helped that any.
That first thing with SI that he did, the thing that Obadiah later used to paralyze him to try and kill him by removing the reactor, that pretty much solidified Tony’s opinions. The media had had a field day with it, reveling in the very brief failure of Tony Stark but he bounced back in a remarkable way, becoming the best there was in mere years. He went from being a millionaire to a billionaire, he revolutionized things every six months, and everyone either loved or hated him for it. Then came Afghanistan and Iron Man and all that other superheroing and that love hate relationship never stopped, and this stupid ass ‘Civil War’ didn’t help any. Half of America hated him and the other half loved him though a lot of the rest of the world was tentatively with Tony on the issue.
Still, it was his job as Tony’s friend to figure out which half of the people who cared about Tony Stark his soul mate fell on. Did he genuinely care about the guy or was he pretending to for some ulterior motive? The plus side was that money as a motivation was out; T’Challa was way more rich than Tony so he didn’t need that. Tony’s inventions were a definite possibility but Wakanda was ahead of the game in tech, almost on par with Tony though Tony was still ahead. That made tech an unlikely, though still possible, motivator. He eliminated sex as a motivator in part because he didn’t think Tony would go there quite yet and also because he got the impression T’Challa was kind of a prude. It was technically unfounded but he was pretty stuffy as a whole, it made sense that he’d be stuffy there too (ha). That mostly left the Avengers as motivators given all the big things Tony was used for were out.
For all he knew T’Challa actually believed the shit they were spouting and he was lulling Tony into a false sense of security and then trying to kill him off. If that’s what this was T’Challa was going to be in for a shock because Tony was tough as hell and a little food poisoning wasn’t going to do him in. Plus that was a dumb way to kill someone, who the hell- oh, actually that was a pretty innocuous way to die and no one would suspect a thing. Damn, that was smarter than he gave initial credit for.
“I did not give Tony food poisoning, he just happened to get sick somewhat quickly after eating food I made him,” T’Challa says, pouting at his sister, who only laughs harder. Rhodey tunes back into the events around him so he could figure out what the hell was going on properly.
“Just admit that your food made your poor soul mate sick and that you should have never tried to feed the poor man,” Shuri says, grinning with glee.
T’Challa sulks, “I did not make Tony sick with the food, this is simply an unfortunate coincidence,” he mumbles in his own defense. Shuri cackles, clearly not believing her brother’s words. “I have things to do, Avengers to relocate, Rhodey would you like to come with me?” T’Challa asks, surprising Rhodey by bringing attention to his presence.
“Uh, sure?” he asks, unsure of the offer.
Shuri gives T’Challa a dirty look, which only earns her a cocky smile from her brother. “Come along then, I am sure you have things to say to them,” T’Challa says, waiting for Rhodey to turn himself around and wheel after him. He spares a glance back at Shuri, who was now glaring at T’Challa’s back.
“Oh I have lots to say, whether or not I’ll actually say anything is debatable.” Sure he had a lot of things he’d like to point out but he also knew that all of it was falling on deaf ears so why bother saying anything. If he wanted to talk for the sake of hearing himself talk he had a few superiors that he could choose to have a conversation with. Or at least he used to have that option; his fucking legs kind of ruined his career. Thank god for Tony because he hadn’t anticipated any of this and he would have spent his entire retirement savings on the initial medical costs let alone the rest of this ordeal. Instead Tony foot the bill, repeatedly telling him not to worry about anything but recovery.
Sometimes it made him feel guilty, using Tony’s resources like that. He knew Tony didn’t care but he did, especially when he watched people use him for his money. It would be easy for Tony to wake up and assume he was one of those people too, especially now after all the medical costs that came with his accidentally being shot out of the sky by Vision. That was a whole other issue too, the poor guy felt guilty only he had no clue what guilt was so he was currently avoiding all things Rhodey, which meant avoiding all things Tony because they were attached at the hip these days. That was hard too, that loss of independence, he had worked damn hard to be self sufficient and able to stand on his own like his momma taught him to and Steve fucking Rogers throwing a pitch fit ruined it all.
He didn’t blame Vision, it wasn’t the android’s fault he didn’t understand emotions, it sure as hell wasn’t Sam’s fault for looking out for his shitty friend, and it wasn’t Tony’s fault for recruiting him to help. It was Steve Rogers’ fault for berating Tony for not listening, not working as a team, and not thinking of anything but his own emotions and goals only to do all those same things that landed him in this chair. If it wasn’t for his stupidity and selfishness none of this would have happened and that made his goddamn blood boil. It was all the worse that that asshole thought Tony was to blame in this. He made some dumb decisions yeah, but he was trying to do right by the world he let down not long ago, he’s never seen integrity and ownership of actions like that from Rogers himself despite supposedly being all sunshine and rainbows and shit.
“You certainly look like you could benefit from venting your frustrations,” T’Challa tells him. The comment irritates Rhodey more than it should considering T’Challa was probably trying to help.
“What the hell do you know about me, anyways?” he asks sharply, glaring up at T’Challa. He didn’t know anything about him, or Tony, and he didn’t much appreciate the assumption that he did.
T’Challa blinks in surprise, clearly thrown by the comment. “Not much, admittedly, though I would have assumed you would be understandably frustrated with the Avengers. You seem quite protective of Tony if your… prickly attitude towards me is any indication,” he says, tilting his head in assessment. That annoys Rhodey more but he mostly keeps it to himself this time.
“Damn right I’m protective of Tony, no one else, Tony included, looks out for him so someone has to. Let me make this clear, if you have any intention on pulling any of the shit the Avengers have been, or even Pepper, then I suggest you walk away now. I have picked up the pieces of Tony’s life more often than I would have liked to, more often than he deserved, and if I have to add the pieces you leave behind to that list things will not go well. I don’t give a damn that I’m in this fucking wheelchair, and I don’t care if you become king of the damn world, I will end you if you hurt him like everyone else has. And you better hope all this isn’t some sort of act to win Tony over for who knows what reason only to take whatever it is you want, leaving him behind wondering what the hell he did wrong.” He’s dealt with that enough, especially through college. Tony never really did learn that when it mattered he hadn’t done anything wrong, usually it was strangers that got the short end of the stick, not people he was invested in.
His reaction gets him a frown, “I am not certain where you got the idea that I have some ulterior motive, and I do not say this as a way to be cruel, but Tony does not have anything I desire aside from his company. There is no reason for me to manipulate him for my own ends because I have more of near everything he has and the things I do wish I had that are his are not things I can take. I assure you I have no ulterior motives,” T’Challa says softly. Rhodey assessed him for a moment, considering the slight confusion and calculation on T’Challa’s face, like he found Rhodey’s reaction strange and was looking to understand it.
“Tony is trusting no matter how much he claims he isn’t. He always wants to see the best in people, always has, and it gets him hurt. People like that he’s a dreamer, that he sees what could be instead of what’s there, it means they can use him for as long as possible because he sees their potential instead of the fact that they’re all a bunch of soul sucking demons,” he says harshly.
“Are you talking about the Avengers?” T’Challa asks.
“In part, but they aren’t the first group of people to do something like this. They happily live off Tony’s resources, take his gifts, live for free on every front, and they fucking berate him for it. Believe me, I get that he can be an asshole and if they want to point that out, good, he needs it sometimes. But they don’t do that, they bully him for acting just like they do and that isn’t right. So if you’re going to be next in the long string of people who think it’s okay to treat him like shit because you’re getting something you want from him then fuck off. He had no need for people like that and I’m not planning on allowing any shit like that to continue, if I can anyways.” It wasn’t like he could control Tony’s actions as much as he wished he could sometimes. Tony would do whatever he wanted good or bad but he would be there to help him in whatever the result may be, just like Tony was there for him when shit went south.
It made his skin itch and crawl that the Avengers didn’t know what they had, that they still only saw what they wanted to, just like Tony did, only it was a bad thing when he did it. To add insult to injury he saw all the good in them, all they saw was the bad in him.
“I know what you mean, his seeing the potential instead of what is there. I assume you know about his involvement with the Avengers court proceedings? They are not much of a team, in my opinion. They are sloppy, disorganized, they do not know what the others are doing half the time, and the other half of the time they are ripping each other to shreds over their decisions. Recently, in Siberia, that became literal. I am also of the opinion that Steve Rogers is a piss poor leader. Instead of seeking to understand the members of his team and working with them he alienates them because they do not agree with him. Tony is often the victim of this, but Natasha has dealt with this too. A good leader knows that he has to understand things on the level of the people he is dealing with in order to get things done. Steve Rogers is incapable of seeing past his own problems, something he likes to heavily criticize Tony for without looking too hard. A good leader knows that he should follow his own advice too,” T’Challa mumbles more to himself than Rhodey.
“Why take them in if that’s what you think of them? Why keep them here?” Rhodey has a sneaking suspicion he knows the answer but he wants actual confirmation.
“I did not know enough of what was going on until it was too late. And I owe Sargent Barnes help after nearly killing him for no reason, blinded stupidly by my own emotions like the Avengers have been. I acted like a fool and I was intent on atoning for that. Then I stumbled onto a land mine of information I wish I had have known before, then I would have only taken Barnes in. I chose to keep them here because Tony asked me to, because he sees a team that can help the world instead of a disorganized group of people destined to detonate,” he says softly. “I respected his wishes because he does not need someone else to tell him that he is wrong for wanting to help, even if I strongly disagree with his position.”
Yeah, that was pretty much what Rhodey thought happened so he sighs, knowing there was no way to talk Tony out of it but wishing that there was.
*
Tony felt like shit but his bed and pillow were soft and comforting, almost like being at home even though he was halfway across the world. By now the room even sort of smelled like him, even if the strange scent of foreign cleaning products and T’Challa lingered just beneath the smells he associated with himself. Expensive cologne, metal, oil, and whatever products he put in his hair. Ideally he would have liked to have been on his way home but the only thing worse than flying was flying sick, and then dealing with jet leg afterwards. So he figured he’d stick around until he felt less like he was going to shrivel up and die. Sucked to be Rhodey but Tony figured he could use his extra time to try and woo Shuri, he wanted to see how that panned out for T’Challa’s reaction alone.
“Are you feeling alright?” someone, T’Challa, asks softly.
He cracks an eye open and looks towards the door, “no, I feel like shit,” he mumbles.
T’Challa lets out a heavy sigh, “you confuse me. You are sick and you admit that you are not okay, you get violently abused and that is fine. It would be nice if you were consistent,” T’Challa tells him. Tony can hear him moving further into the room until he stops at his bedside and gently brushes his hand over Tony’s hair. He would have slapped him away if he wasn’t so zapped for strength, or that’s what he tells himself anyways.
“I can take a punch, puking sucks,” he mutters into his pillow. Besides, T’Challa’s dream didn’t even touch on the worst of what he dealt with, god knows what he would do if he found out the worst of it.
“Are your ribs alright?” T’Challa asks gently, running his hand down Tony’s side.
“No, fuckers are irritated thanks to the puking thing. Ugh.” He sort of wanted to remove them for life at this point, they’ve been in near constant pain for over a month now and he was done with that.
T’Challa sighs quietly, “would you like me to stay?” he asks softly. He thinks of saying no, kind of wants to, but he felt less like ass with T’Challa there. Stupid soul mate healing crap, why couldn’t that work with Rhodey instead? He must have said that out loud because T’Challa laughs, “sorry to disappoint.”
“You aren’t that disappointing, kinda the opposite honestly. Kinda makes my wonder when it’ll all go wrong,” he says genuinely. Nothing that went well ever seemed to go right for him for long, minus Rhodey, who mostly seemed to go right. Even his ever-reliable Pepper went wrong and it was Pepper, she was the most reliable person he knew.
“I would like to promise you things will not go wrong but neither of us are fools, nothing lasts forever even if we would like it to. People change, circumstances change, but as long as this is sustainable I promise you I will try,” T’Challa says with a surprising amount of honesty.
Tony blinks his eyes open, looking up at T’Challa, “thanks for that. I appreciate the honesty, and for the lack of bullshitting. I hate when people do that.”
T’Challa’s lips quirk up, “as do I. I prefer the direct approach, it gets things done faster but unfortunately diplomacy requires patience.”
“Fuck diplomacy, do what you want,” Tony says, earning another laugh from T’Challa.
“You know better than that, even if it would be faster,” T’Challa says. Tony wrinkles his nose because he did, not that he wanted to all the time. Politics sucked but he’s been playing the political game since birth so he was at least familiar with the dance. T’Challa continues to chat with him until he passes out sometime later, tired from being sick.
He wakes up sometime later to find T’Challa curled up beside him with Cleocatra perched on his head, looking like she’s achieved something impressive. He grins at the cat, deciding he liked her spirit.