Chapter 18
Tony is out in the garden sketching a new design while Sharkbait did his damndest to sleep on the damn pad but he perseveres and eventually the cat settles next to his left leg, clicking his weird purr. The last thing he expects is for Natasha to make an appearance, giving him a wary smile as she drops into the spot beside him. Sharkbait wakes up from his nap, gives Natasha one look and growls at her. Tony fights a grin and the urge to tell Sharkbait he is a good cat because that’s rude.
“What’s his problem?” Natasha asks, giving the cat a look. Sharkbait bares his teeth in response and Tony raises an eyebrow at the now very poufy looking cat. He didn’t even think a cat as lazy and calm could have all his hairs on end. Even his wars with Cleo hadn’t yielded this response. Huh.
“Uh, you, I guess. He’s never done that before,” Tony says. Granted he’s only had the cat a few days but it wasn’t hard to pick up on what’s normal and what’s not and this was not at all normal for the cat.
Natasha raises a brow and chooses to ignore the cat. “So, when are we moving back in?” she asks.
He snorts, earning a stare from the now surprised cat. “Hopefully never,” he says, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
“Wait, what?” Natasha’s brows draw together, “but you-”
“Got you off the hook for international crimes, I know. Not an easy task, FYI, and I’m not exactly obligated to continue paying your way out of mistakes and messes of your own making. You all tell me to own up to my mistakes, to live with them, maybe it’s time you all take your own advice. I wasn’t obligated to do as much as I did let alone more.” He wants to call her ungrateful but she never indicated that she wasn’t happy about what he did and unlike the rest of the team he knew better than to throw around accusations and theories with no proof. Even if he really wanted to.
“We do own up to our mistakes, you’re the one that-”
“That what, Natasha? Dares to look at things outside Steve Rogers’ worldview? I’m not apologizing for that, you can’t function on one way of doing things, that’s senseless and inflexible. And don’t you dare suggest that I don’t own up to my mistakes, I own up to my mistakes more than anyone else on the damn team. T’Challa made a literal fucking graph and I scored triple what the rest of you did so fuck you for that. And this right here, this conversation in which I always end up the shitty person? This is why I will never, ever speak to any of you again if I can help it. Because I was fine before you all came, and I still owned up to my mistakes FYI, and since you’ve all come around you’ve done nothing but destroy me at every turn and then wonder why I’m always in a tailspin,” he snarls with more feeling than he knew he had towards the subject.
“When have we done that, to be curious,” Natasha asks, her eyes narrowing slightly.
“Gee, I don’t know. When you broke into my life, spied on me against my will, wrote a report about how arrogant and self obsessed I was without ever taking into account that I was dying and panicking, which meant I wasn’t arrogant at all I was sick. In very literal ways too, not just mentally. Did I act like a self-obsessed jackass? Yeah, but you were the one who encouraged it. No, I shouldn’t have listened, but you can’t blame a man on the edge for being encouraged to jump. Not to mention the obvious- clearly I was having a mental breakdown but I guess being mentally ill is the same as being an arrogant narcissist these days,” he snaps, taking a deep breath to calm himself.
“And then you all continued to ignore how New York affected me. I mean clearly the fact that I was having panic attacks, very public ones, escaped you all somehow because you all felt the need to roll your eyes at my anxiety. Public panic attacks, Natasha. There’s no fucking way any of you missed that and you all rolled you eyes anyways, then wondered why I fell back into old habits of trying to build something to save the world only to nearly destroy it. Shit, Thor actually felt the need to strangle me for being too anxious. And that isn’t even including that Bruce was half of Ultron’s creators but only I get the blame for it. None of you even asked what Wanda did to my head to make me react so strongly- because you don’t care. And you never have,” he says bitterly, almost sadly.
He thought they were his friends and yet… all of this. “And then the Civil War. Boy was I surprised when you actually sided with me, I thought maybe for once you saw that I was trying to learn from my mistakes. Steve told me to listen, to work as a team, that if I didn’t trust people this wouldn’t work and he’s right. It didn’t. The world was pissed because only a handful of people were calling the shots for the whole world and that is insidious at best. We needed to work as a team, to listen to what they were saying, to help them in the way they needed. We’re obligated to do that for them or we aren’t worthy of calling ourselves heroes. But you took the word of a brainwashed man who barely remembers his own name over me and that was the last straw.”
“You clearly didn’t understand the danger, you-”
“Didn’t take the immediate word of a man who was extremely compromised, Natasha. And I mean Steve by that. Not taking Barnes’ word is obvious, the guy just came out of an extreme dissociative state, but Steve was fucking desperate to bend whatever Bucky told him to make him innocent. The guy could have told Steve the sky is purple with green polka dots and by god Steve would have tried to find a way to make it work because he didn’t want to lose Bucky again and I get it. That’s hard, that’s really hard because I’ve lost everything too and I wouldn’t want to loose what I have left. Not that any of you remember that let alone acknowledge it. So no, I didn’t listen and not because I didn’t understand the danger out of arrogance, but because I’m a scientist. You don’t bend things to fit your thesis; you take the evidence and come to a conclusion based off what’s in front of you. I needed evidence, real evidence, and as soon as I had it I was on board. Only to get betrayed two fold by Steve and by you.”
His voice sounds harsh, almost scratchy with emotion. He wishes that he sounded stronger, more sure, but all he sounded was hurt. But he has a right to be.
“What do you mean by me? Other than that T’Challa thing but I didn’t know-”
“I’m not talking about electrocuting T’Challa, that’s an issue you have with him. I’m talking about the fact that you knew Barnes killed my parents for two years and did nothing. Steve? I get why he didn’t say anything even if it makes him a selfish prick. But I’ve been a selfish prick too so I can’t really judge. But you? What excuse did you have other than deeming Steve’s feelings more important and valid than my own? I understand that you’re closer to him but you should have seen that situation clearly, you know how I react under extreme duress, how the hell did you all think I was going to react to Barnes? No, I shouldn’t have attacked him but nothing will ever convince me that anyone else would have done it differently. Given the right circumstances I probably would have reacted far better, but I don’t like surprises and after all that happened that week, well. Besides, Steve spent years hunting down Rumlow for what he did to Bucky, but god forbid I want revenge too.”
He shakes his head sharply, taking in a breath, “I don’t understand you people. You tell me to listen, trust, work as a team and as soon as I do that you all flip the damn script. When Steve wants to reduce the world to one man’s will inflicted onto others then suddenly teamwork, the world’s population, and trust, all that goes out the window. Even though we all know what happens when one man calls the shots- it fails. I’ve done it- don’t look at me like that Natasha. Steve Rogers is not perfect and when his screw-ups eventually make the whole world shake with the consequences that blood with be on your hands,” he says harshly.
He turns on his heel quickly, taking a few steps away before he turns back. “You know, Natasha, for someone who wants to wipe out the blood in her ledger you’re far more content with spreading it around.” With that he walks off, not noticing Sharkbait at his feet until he almost steps on the poor animal.
*
In his haste to get the hell away from Natasha he almost doesn’t notice Scott until he’s nearly on top of the guy. “Shit, sorry,” he mumbles, quickly side stepping away to give Scott and himself some breathing room. Tony wondered how the Avengers were so damn spread out considering they were only supposed to be here gathering whatever things they may have left behind after their initial removal but alright.
Scott gives him a snide look, “well, well, your conscience clear yet, Stark?” he asks, tone matching his facial expression.
“I’ll never have a clear conscience, Lang,” he says. Surprise flickers across Scott’s face but Tony ignores it. “Funny you mention my conscience like you know anything about it though. Your powers, they function based off exposure to the Pym particle, yeah? Meaning you have regular contact with Hank Pym?” he asks.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Scott says. He’s stupid enough to puff up with pride too, like going anywhere near Hank Pym was something to be proud of let alone being actual friends with the guy.
“Next time you see him you should ask if he has a clear conscience, and while you’re at it ask why Jan really went subatomic. Or better yet why don’t you call Hope and ask why her relationship with her father is so strained, and I’ll give you a hint. It’s got nothing to do with the Wasp. That man has some balls judging Howard Stark and me by extension when Hope’s childhood was a level of horrifying that even I can’t imagine and I lived with a rampaging abuser too. Then ask him how he can ignore that and judge other people’s consciences when he doesn’t even have one,” Tony snaps. He continues past Scott, hitting his shoulder slightly as he goes. Lang remains silent as he goes, presumably shocked into shutting his big mouth when he had no right to open it in the first place.
He would have far preferred to be left on his own but he runs into Okoye next, thankfully not literally. “Can I speak to you?” she asks softly. It was the least severe he’s seen the woman look and even now she looked ready to fight.
“I, uh… sure. What about,” he asks tiredly. He manages to keep the irritation from his voice though; it was hardly Okoye’s fault that everyone around him is horrible.
“T’Challa,” she says and she shifts uncomfortably. “I… do not like doing this without his express permission but what happened the other night? And how do you deal with that? I have never seen anything like that before and I certainly am not qualified to deal with such things. And you will not always be around to help him.”
It always surprises Tony how much T’Challa’s people cared for him because people were highly suspicious of the leaders of his country. Here, though, people were far more open and trusting of one another. They weren’t much trusting of him given the strange looks he’s gotten the few times he’s been in the general public but with the history of colonialism and white supremacy in the countries surrounding Wakanda he understood the suspicion. Hell, America didn’t exactly have the greatest reputation now and given his own direct participation in that bad reputation Tony could see why the Wakandans were so suspicious. But they were plenty involved with each other and it was a total shock to him.
And the Dora Milaje were extraordinarily dedicated to T’Challa. In return T’Challa was dedicated to his people and the way Tony has seen him interact with people is interesting. He listened to them, took their opinions into account in a way that Tony has never seen before. More than that he was willing to admit that he made mistakes, and he learned from them, he even admitted that he had things to learn. Tony’s personal experience with that showed him that T’Challa was plenty willing to follow through on all of those things too.
“Tony?” Okoye asks, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Sorry, I was uh… I was thinking about what a great leader T’Challa is. The best I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure,” he says honestly.
“That is because Americans are stupid,” Okoye says bluntly.
“In their defense our school system needs some serious reform, among other things,” Tony points out, “but back to the task at hand. What you saw the other day was a panic attack, I get them frequently. You would have come across that in your research-”
“You did not react like that,” Okoye says. Despite the interruption she is highly invested in his words, clearly trying to understand what was going on.
“That’s because I already had a coping mechanism- my suit. Once I got to it I felt safe enough to calm down but T’Challa didn’t even know what happened to him let along how to deal with it. He’s going to need some time to learn to deal with things,” Tony says. Hell, these days Tony needed time to learn how to deal with these things too. It’s been awhile since the last panic attack but he was due for another one soon, one that wasn’t T’Challa induced.
Okoye frowns for a moment, “his coping mechanism is you. That cannot continue, you are not a reliable coping mechanism. No offense, it is just that you will not always be there when he needs it and-”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Tony tells her, “but taking what little he has to help him isn’t going to do anything but make it worse. People tried to do that with me and my tech and you know the rest of that story. It’ll just exacerbate the issue instead of forcing him to find a new coping mechanism. But T’Challa is an excellent problem solver, he’ll know that I’m not the best of coping mechanisms and he’ll find something new. We just have to wait him out a little while he figures out how to adjust and then it’ll be more support than dependence that he’s looking for,” Tony says. Right now Tony doubted much else would pull T’Challa out of the state he was in the other night. He’s a smart man though; he’ll learn pretty quickly what works and what doesn’t. He seemed far less resistant to the idea of mental health issues than Rhodey, or even Tony not all that long ago. That’ll be a huge help later on.
“So in the meantime I can do nothing,” she says. Her jaw clenches slightly in frustration, clearly irritated that she couldn’t do much.
“Basically. I mean other than being generally supportive but you already have that covered so,” he shrugs, unworried about Okoye’s ability to support T’Challa when he had one of the best support systems Tony has ever seen.
“Oh, I am no good with emotions, my children complain frequently. Emotion is not a necessary part of my job, but now it needs to be and I am uncertain how to handle that,” she says, looking more frustrated than before.
Tony snorts, “Okoye, you’re great with emotions. And you use them for your job all the time- don’t give me that look- you do. I’ve never seen a group of people as dedicated, loving, and supportive as the Dora Milaje are with T’Challa, yourself included. You’re all incredibly invested in all sorts of things that aren’t directly related to his safety. I have a lot of personal experience with that given that there has been zero reason for you to defend me to he Avengers, actually there’s no reason for you to care about me at all given that I’ve been proven safe. But the Dora Milaje are invested in my safety because I make T’Challa happy and you care about his happiness. And this conversation in general has nothing to do with his safety. Panic attacks don’t hinder your job much if at all, and you certainly don’t need to know how to deal with them. You saw that he was fine, physically speaking, afterwards. But you care about his mind as much as his body- the fact that you care in general is jarring to me. In America we don’t care for our leaders like that.”
Actually they barely cared about their leaders at all unless it was to point out how horrible they were. Wakanda seemed to function in the exact opposite way- they were all very involved with T’Challa and they cared greatly, in a good way though. The culture here was an astounding difference than what it was like in his own country. He could do without the stares but to be fair he was pretty damn pale compared to everyone else, he sort of stuck out like a sore thumb. He’d ask the rest of the Avengers how the stares compared but he didn’t want to speak to them ever again so.
“You believe that?” Okoye asks, drawing his attention back to the conversation.
“Yeah, of course I do,” Tony says honestly. There was no point in saying that much when he didn’t mean it, at least not in this context. In politics, however, that was a pretty useful tool. That was probably why T’Challa hated about politics so much given that he tended to be a very straightforward and logical person, talking without saying anything was useless and didn’t solve anything. As much as Tony wanted to deny that he liked anything about T’Challa… well, there were a lot of things he liked about his soul mate. One of those things was the people he chose to surround himself with given that Okoye, the rest of the Dora Milaje, and Shuri were all incredible people. He wished that he had people like that and as much as he loved Rhodey one person wasn’t enough and Pepper… that just went sour and he was still sort of bitter about it.
“Thank you,” Okoye says meaningfully, “that is what we strive for.” So Tony knew, they were damn successful in their endeavors.
“Well, you’re doing a good job. So you have kids? What are they like?”
*
“I am not certain what you said to Okoye but she is particularly fond of you today,” T’Challa tells him.
“She asked about how do deal with future panic attacks and I complimented the way she and the Dora Milaje work. They care about you in every sense of the word, they aren’t just doing the job out of obligation or because they get paid. It’s impressive to me,” he says.
T’Challa raises an eyebrow, “what did you say about the panic attacks?”
“That right now you need some time to work things out. She was worried you might grow an overdependence on my helping you through them and she’s not wrong to worry. But I don’t really see that becoming a problem, you’re mostly dependent on my knowledge of how to work through them. You’re a fantastic problem solver, you’ll figure out a way to deal with the panic attacks if they continue.” He was confident in that too and it’s been a long, long time since Tony has been confident in someone like this. Even Rhodey had his issues, though he did a good job working them out. And lately he had a whole new appreciation for Tony’s mental health issues considering his own cropping up. They’d work that out too, though, like always.
“Thank you,” T’Challa says quietly, ducking his head and smiling some. Tony smiles too, happy that T’Challa is happy. “You seem to be in a good mood,” T’Challa notes.
“All things considered I am, actually. It’s nice here, even if I saw a spider earlier that made me decide that Australia might not have the most terrifying eight legged creatures on this planet,” he says. Damn thing was so scary it probably would have prompted some miraculous healing for Rhodey’s back just so he could run away.
“I am sure the spider was not that frightening, they do get that large here. Nor are they deadly. But what do you mean ‘all things considered’? Designs giving you trouble?” T’Challa jokes.
“Nah, I had a run in with Natasha earlier, then Scott. But it’s fine now, I left before things got super heated,” he says. It was mostly true, minus that barbed comment to Natasha he thought he handled himself pretty well.
“Excuse me?” T’Challa asks harshly, his face smoothing out some when Tony blinks in confusion. “I am not angry with you, but I am rather irritated because I expressly told Rogers to keep his Avengers away from you and once again he ignored that,” he says through clenched teeth.
“To be fair Nat’s a bit of a slippery one, he probably didn’t even notice that she left and came back-” he starts to say in Steve’s defense but T’Challa cuts him off.
“If Steve Rogers was a good leader his people would respect him enough to respect his wishes, clearly that is not the case. I am finished with this,” T’Challa all but hisses, standing and striding quickly towards the door of his office.
“Wait, where are you going?” Tony asks, twisting in his chair to catch T’Challa’s answer.
“I am going to tell them they have twelve hours to get the hell out of my country or I will send the Dora Milaje after them to do what they will,” he snarls, walking out of the door before Tony could protest.
“Is… is that even legal?” Tony asks himself more than anyone else.
Imagine his surprise when he gets an answer. “Technically yes,” someone says from behind him, voice accented.
He whirls around to find a Dora Milaje had materialized out of fucking nowhere, “Jesus, do you hide behind the curtains or something? And how is legal, exactly, I don’t want T’Challa to arrested. Or any of the Doras for that matter,” he throws in.
“Technically without the permission of the King to be here, or the Queen should Shuri be in charge, they would be invading the country. Which is the only crime punishable by death,” the woman says, looking pleased about this.
“Damn, you’re harsh,” Tony mumbles softly.
“Only when we need to be. The Captain told the world he had a right to be wherever he decides he needs to be, the world’s opinions on this be damned. Let him see what happens when he steps out of bounds in an unforgiving place,” she says harshly. Tony, for the first time, is glad that he’s T’Challa’s soul mate because the Dora Milaje are terrifying women and he very much did not want to be killed off by them.