Chapter 17
We don't use the R Word
Tony POV
7th October
Before he gets a chance to call Shuri, she calls them while he was still helping Harley sort out his homework.
"Meowthra, mind getting that, it's your sister, I'll be a minute."
At the Kings nod he flicked his hand towards the screen as T'Challa rolls his seat from where Peter had been showing off pretty much everything he had been working on. He had to give it to the King, he looked just as interested on the 12th thing as he had on the first.
"You're not Tony."
"What delightful greetings I get from my sister."
"Ha ha brother, I just did not expect to find you in Tony's worksh- Peter!"
"Hi Shuri!"
Peter hopped up, grinning and waving, he slipped on his sunglasses before he turned around as he knew the camera covered part of Harley's desk at least. He and Harley came into frame.
"Hey Shuri, workshop isn't always so busy."
"Why does she never smile at me like this? Charming sister, utterly charming."
Tony just grinned at the king.
"Your brother was going to give you a ring to say he made it here okay. He's just being accosted by Underoos here."
"Well I hope you're having fun brother. Abandoning me with the pests you invited over!"
Tony decides it is best to keep silent on that, because Shuri is rather terrifying when she wants to be and he actually does have some sense of self preservation. Somewhere. Really. It's just hard to locate..
"Next time you can come over Kit-Kat, the rest of my hoard would love to have you over. Today council meeting was cancelled so he figured why not pop over!"
"Yes, I have some kind of interview tomorrow about how Wakanda is integrating with the world, so we thought we'd stop here and then go to the hotel."
"You sound utterly thrilled about that."
Tony grinned, when it wasn't him going on talk shows or interviews it was hilarious.
"Tony! That's a great idea."
"Huh, What now?"
"You can go on the show with my brother."
Tony blinked for a second and ran the conversation through his head and wasn't sure where that had even come up. T'Challa however now had hopeful face on.
"Okay, fine, I'll crash your interview. Now, what were you after Shuri?"
"Huh, Oh! I was just calling to tell you the next data packets are slowly making their way to you. It'll take a few hours."
Shuri looked slightly grumpy about how long it was going to take and he figured he'd push his surprise early for her. There was still some work to do tomorrow, he assumed after his impromptu interview invasion. But he was very close.
" Wait a second before you send, I have a surprise."
He dropped off the camera then because it would take an annoyingly long to type this. He started pushing the updates he had stacked for the integration. It should cut a considerable amount of time off the transfer, hopefully. He was very close to creating a line where sure could work as seamlessly in his servers as she could back at home and the same for him. He closed his eyes, just because it was easier, and felt everything settling into place and only had a few bug reports ping back at him. Which was impressive really and he'd work on them later. When he was done he slipped back into the camera where Shuri's hands were dancing across her screens excitedly.
"Better?"
"Oh yeah, you'll get everything much faster now."
T'Challa was looking over what he and Shuri had built as well as the two teens.
"I'll be able to finish everything up my end, then all you have to do is push your last changes and I think it might be done."
"Done? As if you and my sister will actually stop working on it?"
"Well, mostly?"
Shuri just laughed and didn't stand up for him at all, typically.
"OK, I'm going to herd this lot off for dinner. Bye Kit-Kat."
"Have fun, I might have some too.."
Whilst everyone was waving goodbye to Shuri he and FRIDAY set things up to open several of the guests rooms for T'Challa and the Dora. He missed the amused smirk she shot, but he knew that tone of voice. She was definitely up to something, he wondered if he should feel bad about being highly amused at the fact. Na.
Whoever the unlucky person was, they probably deserved it.
It simply made more sense for them all to crash here rather than running off to a hotel, there were guest rooms for precisely this occasion. It wasn't until hours later that he realised that he had left the sleeve off of his hand. Well, that was one way to tell the teen. He figured he'd get a lecture later when she'd gotten used to the idea.
Whilst everyone was scattering after dinner he pulled T'Challa to one side. He hadn't wanted to dump this on the young King. But he had to know. It was amazing that they'd kept everything away from the press for so long, but there was a chance that maybe X one day, a family member might get angry enough. Plus, he had Wanda in his country. He passed the file over and watched the dawning horror on the man's face.
"I didn't want to just dump this over to you, but you need to know what she's capable of when she feels trapped. Don't… don't make any big moves without contacting me first. "
"Of course, I did not realise she was such a threat."
"I've got someone working on it, as long as you don't try to separate her or contain her from the others, just keep her in the holding pattern."
The king nodded and carried on reading through the file. Of the people who died during the escape from the raft. Of the ones who took their lives in the days following.
" This is why you warned Shuri off of her, isn't it. "
He nodded, he'd wanted to tell them about this file the second he learned of it, but was worried it would result in more deaths. He knew from Shuri what was going on. As long as Wanda believed herself to be at a position of power and strength he doubted something like the raft would happen again. He didn't want to risk them going after her until Stephy had finished his Magic necklaces. No. He wasn't going to call them amulets or talismans. They were magic necklaces.
"Now Thunderbritches is gone, this might come out. I don't know, many of the guard were loyal to him. For whatever reason he wanted it quiet and it stayed that way. Now however…"
"I understand."
Tony POV
8th October
Waking up was definitely a good thing some mornings, his nightmares had definitely changed since Stephy had been rooted around in his brain but it hadn't out right stopped his nightmares.
Tonight has been the fun one of being trapped in the suit again, but he could at least move his hands. The manual catches on the suit however were frozen shut with blood and ice. So, not exactly the nicest twist he'd experienced, but also not one of the worst nightmares.
So far only Stephy knew that the witch had left crap in his head, well, Wong too, but Wong wouldn't tell Rhodey on him. He knew that if he didn't tell Rhodey or Carol at some point Stephy would step up his pointed glares to out right tattling.
But that was Tomorrow-Tony's problem. As was "The Talk" with Carol. Oh, and finally introducing Tiny Thor and Goose like some bonkers parents introducing their children, but in this instance one child could actually eat the other. What had his life become lately? He needed to work on that Accords contract for Deadpool. Trying to sanitise people like Wade, Nathan and Eddie was going to be so much fun.
Glancing down he realised he'd actually drifted to sleep holding his tablet, Extremis was helping his shake off the last bits of sleep but he could not remember what he had been working on.
Ah. That was it, same thing he'd been working on every night since he got that sodding letter from Barnes and had been doubled down by the guy giving him permission to be more involved with his treatment. He was trying to… respond? He was originally just going to sort of ignore it, not maliciously but because he didn't know what to reply with!
When SuperSecretProject.2 was launched there were fundamental parameters.
1 - Don't tell anyone
That was pretty much it really.
Rhodey was still unimpressed with him and Rhodey didn't even know how much of his time he had actually devoted to the problem with Barnes and his infuriatingly interesting brain. Shuri and T'Challa where meant to be it. Barnes had somehow gone and got past his security measures and then he'd unintentionally told Rhodey.
He had thought Barnes knowing he was involved would had ended the project really.
He wasn't entirely sure how the man had gotten Rogers to go along with it, in fact he was pretty much waiting everytime Shuri called that he'd changed his mind and was stopping treatment altogether. Which considering before he came along with BARF, their treatment plan had been to sit in cryo and hope something came a long. He didn't want that for the man.
He already had the scope of the adaptive programme and was actually quite confident in how it was going to work. He still had no idea precisely what it was about Barnes brain that was causing so many problems but he could see how it was working now. It gave him an edge.
He was more stuck on sending a response to the man than writing a never before imagined adaptive programme based on a rather impossible brain. If that didn't say something about him, he didn't know what did.
A few drafts that he'd scrapped in the early hours were just him talking about the man's brain and the program. Which would be extremely weird thing to say to a.. Person. What even was Barnes to him, a person who killed his parents but kind of didn't? Person who was involved in a bunker rattling fight? Frozen dude whose brain I'm helping to fix? Person who hasn't realised what century we are in and is still sending snail mail? Person who Rogers nearly broke the world for?
Guy who gave him level 4 access to data on the glasses. He had even made sure that Barnes read what that meant and he'd actually read everything according to the glasses.
So add that to the list.
The man actually reads full terms and conditions.
Maybe he was just looking at it from his overly paranoid self, sure he wouldn't let any other doctor bar Dr Cho or Dr Wu within a mile of his chest. It had taken a lot of persuading for him to even allow her to talk to a cardiologist too. Before Siberia and Extremis he been having progressively more heart problems, the shrapnel hadn't been the big bad in the end, it had been the car battery. When it sparked it had caused damage all over the place, nastily his pacemaker cells took quite a hit. So even when he was suffering with erratic arrhythmia pretty much daily, he had still been resistant about letting a different doctor near him.
And the doctor was highly qualified and submitted to as many searches into his history as Tony wanted. Signed non disclosures, jumped through Tony impressive array of hoops. He had still considered saying no, even after that.
Barnes.. He had just handed over nearly everything the glasses collected barring the memory videos themselves. To him. The last time they'd seen each other had been.. Bad. Yet somehow the Winter Soldier had less trust issues than him. Huh.
In the meantime, the guy would have Clint and Wanda listing everything he had ever done wrong, and knowing those two, alluding to many other things that he had nothing to do with. If Wanda hadn't called him Merchant of Death he'd be stunned. He didn't know about Roger's, after Ultron there had been sharp comments from pretty much everyone and the friendship he had with the man had deteriorated at a rapid pace, but they'd hung on in places. He didn't know what Rogers would pass on. Definitely that he was not trustworthy. If he'd thought he was trustworthy then the man would have told him before Zemo got his chance.
As for Wilson and Lang, it was hard to get a read on them. Wilson seemed okay, he just had Rogers sized blinders. The amount of great ideas he had for the team that he didn't fight for was maddening. Rogers said no and he'd immediately drop it. As for Lang, maybe if Hank hadn't gotten there first, maybe they could have gotten along. If anything he found his track record highly amusing. But Hank had his very strict 'Hate all Starks' rule. "Never Trust a Stark" from the man who had been trying, constantly, as far back as Tony could remember, trying to steal his tech. He had a few warehouses set up specifically for Hank to break in with tech that was fundamentally flawed. Hope had found that hilarious.
Lang had utterly bought the kool aid however, so he suspected that he would have let Barnes know the gospel of Hank.
So, a logical reaction to finding out the person who made the tech and algorithms that are messing with your brain is actually this evil, death dealing, untrustworthy rich guy is not to send a thankyou letter.
That he and Sam had been researching him? What was it "in a completely not stalkerish way"?
Nice to put that in as a qualifier really.
Not sure whether he should mention that he's been dealing with the press and stalkers since he could walk. Again the interesting part was that Sam was researching him? He'd actually lived with Sam, the man had shown very little interest and a propensity to believe everything people told him.
Tony wonders what magical research this is, really. Or is Barnes magical?
Also he's not even sure how to reply. He really didn't want to write a letter. Anything he sent digitally would have to go through Shuri. Which means she would analyse anything he said, come to utterly incorrect conclusions and then torment him with them for ages.
Dammit. He was going to have to write something. On paper. He glanced around his room and found what he was looking for. He kept a notepad for sketches, either engineering or otherwise. It was the only time he really used paper. After nearly scrapping yet another reply he figured he was thinking about this way too much and just wrote what came to mind before slipping it into an envelope. He figured he'd pass it on the T'Challa when he was about to leave. He's not sure when he turned into an awkward teenager with a pen pal, but he was not fond of it.
"FRIDAY, ask if Stephy is free?"
"Sure thing Boss."
Tony pulled out some clothes he could wear to the interview when his senses were suddenly blasted with gold.
"Ahhhh!"
"Yes?"
"Stephanie damn. Warning next time!"
"You contacted me?"
"Yes, to see if you were free, not for you to give me a heart attack."
Stephy seemed utterly unphased and started snooping around his room whilst looking unamused at the same time.
"Well. I'm free until breakfast."
Tony added up the time in his head and figured it was enough time.
"Yeah, that should do it. What if I just so happened to have videos of the rogues reactions to the Accords Council visit and the Press Conference?"
"Well, now you see, that would be tricky. As I'm sure if you knew where the international fugitives were, you would have told me. Anthony."
Now he was glaring. And calling him Anthony. Yikes.
Well, at least he's not snooping anymore?
"They're contained, it's fine. I was sent the videos and I've been avoiding watching them, so I figure I could send them t-"
"FRIDAY. Play the first video."
Stephy just glared at him, daring him to protest, but he knew that look so he just flopped down onto the bed as the TV flicked on. Because apparently even FRIDAY obeyed Stephen over him.
"The idea was you watch them, then you tell me if I need to watch it."
Sam's voice came across as Stephy sent him another withering glare.
*"Urm, before we watch the film, I thought you guys should see this.."
Barnes started signing at him almost immediately.
Bad idea! Bad idea!*
Huh. Okay, had Barnes already seen the video before this? Why is he signing?
*"What the fuck is this Wilson?"
"It's a video from an Accords Council session."*
Wanda's magic lashed out and he managed to repress the flinch seeing it. Even over video it apparently had some affect. Stephy looked so unimpressed it was actually amusing, it made seeing the Witch less nerve racking.
"Is she just vomiting energy into the room?"
"She used to do that a lot."
Stephy sneers and returns his unamused glared back to the screen.
*"And why would we want to see anything about that?"
"Because Steve wanted updates on Stark and Barton wanted updates on his wife." *
Why the hell did Rogers want updates on him?
Before he could think about that much, the him on the TV entered the room and started talking at the podium. Hilariously they all shut up when he started talking. That was a first.
Wanda however was making gagging sounds, Clint was just scowling at the TV, probably because of Laura. Barnes looked a lot better than he'd last seen him. But that wasn't really difficult, out of everyone he looked like he was watching the rogues more than the video. He had the look of someone waiting for chaos.
He also noticed how everyone was very.. spread out. Barnes and Lang tucked away on one side, Wilson in between them and Rogers, almost sat alone. Wanda and Clint squished into one seat on the other side of the room.
*"I can't believe he is still working for Ross and these ridiculous Accords. We aren't even there for them to use against us, I was hoping that they'd -"
"Of course he's working with that slime bag, you told me he was compromised, Stark never admits he's wrong and now he's dragged my wife down with him… She barely even looks like-"
"He's probably been living it up with him this whole time and violations? His prison was a violation." *
So Rogers thought he was working with Ross, that the Accords would vanish without them, Clint thought he'd dragged Laura into this and Wanda thought he built the raft.
"Well, I knew their opinions were low.."
"How did you work with these people?"
Tony shrugged, this was pretty much why he didn't want to watch these videos. He knew what they'd say to his face after all. What they'd say behind his back?
He also realised that the other three didn't dog pile on with the insults.
*"Wonder why he's on medical leave, he looks okay?"*
"That answers one question. The dear Captain didn't tell his troops what he did to you after all."
He would have responded to Stephy but he had been drawn to Barnes signing again.
*Watch his hands.*
What did he do with his hands?
He didn't remember doing anything with his hands.
Clint scoffing about the data dump didn't shock him really, he still never understood why Clint had been fine with it. Out of everyone else he knew what it meant for over a thousand agents and their families. The only reason he was safe was because Laura was not in any documentation. Not that that had saved her in the end.
*"So when he does it it's fine, When Nat does it he goes into a snit!"
"Who cares what he's saying anyway! It's just Stark rambling on, he just enjoys the sound of his own voice."*
He was not at all shocked that Clint didn't respond well to being told to be quiet. The man was just running on rage these days from how Shuri tells it. He watched himself talking about the human rights violations and found himself watching his own hands without meaning to. Dammit.
*" Considering what happened to me on the raft, he should be reporting himself "
*" Be quiet everyone, this seems very serious and like something we should be invested in. "*
He couldn't not laugh, Stephy even smirked at that. Yes, it was something they should have been involved in. If they had stayed and behaved, the Accords would have been much easier to handle and Ross would have been in jail earlier.
*" What the fuck does he mean 'cleaning up after the Avengers' "
" Probably throwing his money around. "
" Stark did tell me once about charities he'd set up to help people who were hurt by our… What? "*
"What, did they think cities they helped destroy magically rebuilt themselves without you?"
"I don't think they really thought of it, Sam did actually show interest in the charities however once when I was organising a fundraiser."
*" What the fuck were we supposed to do? Let aliens take over to save some property damage? "
" Wait, wait, I think he's talking about us..? "*
Scott's managed to derail that potential argument, the split in the room was even more apparent, he wished he could find himself enjoying it. Instead it made his chest hurt, the scar from the shield feeling tight.
*" I thought Stark put us in that jail? "
" He did! "*
They actually thought it was him who built the raft and detained him? It left him feeling slightly dissociated that Wanda screech and Stephy subsequent hiss of recklessness and lack of magical control barely registered to him.
*"That.. That's a lot of countries." *
"That's Cassie's father isn't it? Did he not look into the records before fighting then?"
"Rogers told him to jump, he did."
He just shrugged and tried to force himself to pay attention, just in time for Wanda's response to him allowing the Accords to classify him as a super.
*"He can make anything about himself. "*
Rogers did nothing to curtail her. Wilson looked confused, Barnes looked utterly unimpressed with the Witch, not that he blamed him. Barnes nodded to Wilson and he realised that on the video one of his hands was crippling the edge of the podium. He didn't even remember doing that, how in the hell had Barnes noticed?
When Laura took over he knew Clint was going to yell thinking back on what she said.
*"WHAT?!"
"Oh my god, this isn't happening, she can't do that! Not with me here! What about the kids?!" *
Stephy was wildly smiling now, but that wasn't surprising. The doctor wouldn't admit it, but he didn't hate Laura. He even got on with Cooper. He was abjectly terrified of Lilah and 'Watching Stephy panic when he was handed Nate' is a folder full of gifs on his server
*" Dammit I should have been there! "*
That would have been sensible really, the man had been retired. There was no reason for Rogers to have pulled him in. He'd gone to Peter instead of going near Clint. No reason for him to have said yes. Looking at him and Wanda now however, he wondered if he came running for her rather than Rogers?
Clint started angrily pacing and he was sure of it, Barnes was smiling. Which was confusing, he'd expected them all to be best pals. The rest of the video was watched in relative silence, with Clint storming off at the end. Wilson and Barnes signed again, subtly out of sight of anyone else but now of the cameras.
*You could have warned me!
I told you it would be a bad idea.*
As Barnes slunk off and the video cut he chanced a glance at Stephy.
"So, is this why you've been in touch with Wakanda so much?"
He was pretty impressed that the sorcerer worked out where it was based on the decor.
"No, me and Shuri have been working on integration and other things."
It really didn't help the feeling that he was in the principal's office with Stephy looming over him like a giant.
"Tony. Tell me what else."
He rolled his eyes, damn sorcerers and their damned perceptiveness. And for knowing him so well.
"Well, I sent BARF to help Barnes as then had him on ice. Its turning out to be a bit trickier than we thought so I'm directly involved."
"Does he know?"
"Shockingly? Yes and he is weirdly fine with it. Stephanie, I mean insanely trusting levels of fine. I'm weirded out."
He doesn't say anything but he has that look on his face when he's thinking things through.
"Right. FRIDAY, next video please."
Next time, go to Carol. Sod potential painful discussions. 'Carol wouldn't make me watch confusing videos.' He thinks to himself as FRIDAY lines up the next video, again, without asking him.
"FRIDAY, at least, I don't know, speed through the bits we've talking?"
Might make it go quicker maybe? It was Wilson that started the video again.
*"Ah guys.."
"Oh fuck you if you have any more bad news."
"Well, it's just Stark has done a press conference."
"Oh play it, maybe he mentions our pardons." *
Stephy barked out a full laugh and Tony found himself staring at Rogers in utter confusion. Why the hell would Rogers think he was getting them Pardons? If they thought that, why were they still insulting him left right and centre? Clint and Wanda were literally muttering about how awful he was at the same moment!
The video sped up as he started talking but it slowed down pretty much as soon as it had started when Rogers, Clint and Wanda screeched.
*"NEW AVENGERS?!" *
"What, did they think I'd just sit around waiting for them?"
He was actually veering towards irritated instead of hurt and insulted now as the video sped up again, Clint jumped in, again. As per usual, the angry archer couldn't seem to stay quiet. It used to be quips and jokes but lately it was just anger. Any friendship they might have had once had apparently died with Ultron, along with pretty much all of his decent personality traits.
*"What, have they just got the Avengers doing any old job now."
"I know, if they're bogged down with things like this how could they possibly get ready for serious problems." *
"Hmm, I had wondered why the old Avengers had not operated as they do now. I had thought it was primarily Carol's influence, but it isn't is it?"
"Well, no. Its something I've done for a while, home threats, terrorism and helping when requested. It wasn't something the Avengers were designed for. The Angry Pirate was doing it in his secrety secret ways. Saving people from wildfires didn't warrant assembling. "
Handy thing about being a consultant, SHIELD never had much power to order him around, especially not to order him not to help with domestic threats.
Their reactions to Shay was good, he was still angry at Rogers for that. Much more than he let on too, kissing and then abandoning his cousin to the fall out of his actions? He was possibly more pissed at that than he was about Rogers nearly killing him.
*"I didn't know Sharon even knew Stark.. That means Peggy.." *
"Yup, if he had stayed and married Peggy, he'd likely have been my God Father or something."
He shuddered at that and Stephy looked like he'd bitten a lemon.
"Small mercies I suppose."
*"That's actually impressive, that they have Captain Danvers.
"She was on Hydras watch list, known associate of Fury. I don't know how much about her abilities is true.. But she is powerful." *
Tony had been expecting Barnes to sign again, so hearing his voice startled him slightly. He sounded different from when he was in Siberia, there was a definite Russian undertone in his voice that made it interesting. He blinked that thought away, he'd have to tell Carol that Hydra were scared of her, she'd get a kick out of that.
*"Fury mentioned her, it's where he came up with the idea for the Avengers, I get why she's leading but why Rhodes? He's obviously disabled."*
Tony was close to hurting Clint over what he said at the raft. The way he said disabled, it was a complete sneer and Tony knew the only reason he didn't use an ableist slur was because Rogers would probably scold him,
Tony heard what he meant anyway. Yeah. He was showing this to Laura, she already knew where the rogues were so it wouldn't be hard to explain. There weren't many people that just accepted things like Stephy did.
Speaking of the sorcerer, he was smirking at Wanda's reaction to him.
"I bet Hydra told her about you."
"Quite, she looks utterly terrified doesn't she. But notice that she isn't telling her pals. Not wanting to bring up her Hydra connections maybe?"
"Don't know why not, Steve spouts her amazing change of heart and her hero story enough."
"But I wonder if the dear Captain has told his tortured friend that?"
Huh. Interesting, but Rogers surely wouldn't do that.
*"He was on SHIELDS watch list. He used to be some hot shot surgeon, got into a car crash, vanished and returned as someone with unknown, off the charts levels of power." *
"Lovely to know SHIELD were watching me.."
"I altered all their reports on you."
He smirked at the smile Stephy shot him, everytime they thought they got an idea about his powers he edited everything. He had bugs placed in SHIELDs systems to alert him if his friends were ever targeted. It had been fun. Considering the company he tended to keep and the kind of people SHIELD listed after was basically a circular Venn diagram. Some people covered their own tracks, DP was a pain.
*"I still can't believe it, Hope man.. Her dad despised all Stark's.. " *
Scott's reaction to him introducing Hope onto stages wasn't exactly a shock. He did want to correct him. Hank hated Howard. It had nothing to do with him. He was a sodding kid when they'd started their feud.
*"What are you doing Tony? You already have a team, surely getting us pardons would be much easier than inviting all these.. strange people in without talking about it." *
Tony just stared, Rogers reaction as the Defenders walked onto stage was staggering. Did he think he would just invite them back and return everything to exactly how they'd been before? Annoyingly, If they'd come back in the first week or two after the coma, he might have even done it.
His new abilities, then having Harley and Tara? It made him reassess.
He looked back at how things had been and realised that he didn't want his kids to deal with that, so he'd set about building a new team. With the hopes it would been everything he'd wished the Avengers would be when he invited them to live in the tower.
Nat caught everyone's attention, but that wasn't a surprise. Barnes leaning ever so slightly closer, his attention sharpening and face blanking was interesting. There was definitely something there.
*"Maybe she went to Stark so she could keep us updated on things at the compound, but couldn't because of the probation?"
"Yeah, she's playing double agent. She's not really with Stark."*
If he hadn't seen Nats colours, that comment probably would have torn him up inside. Would have wrecked anything he'd slowly built with her… but then without his abilities, he doubted he'd have let her back at all.
"I don't think.. Wilson? Wilson believes that. I think he was trying to avoid a large argument."
"Probably, it's actually kind of weird for me to see people like this, no colours, so it's like I'm missing information."
Weirdly thought, it had made him better at reading people in general. It was nice, as he'd never been overly good at reading people before.
*" Why didn't we do this? "
"Stark handled PR."
"We had more important things to be doing than pandering to the press like this." *
If he'd known Wilson was interested in PR of the Avengers he would of happily involved him in it. Would have been nice to have another person to share the load with. Rogers and Clints comments did not shock him. Both of them assumed that he could fix anything in a heartbeat and ignored the sheer amount of work he had to put in for it.
They actually manage to stay quiet for a while when the questions start coming in. Barnes and Wilson seemed the most interested out of everyone
*" I wonder why Tony never mentioned these people?"*
"Why would I have? Especially after Ultron, why would I introduce friends to people insulting me all the time?"
"The Witch would have had a heart attack if you brought me home."
That would have been hilarious.
"They're quite shocked at your entrance age to MIT."
Sam jumped in just after Stephy spoke to back up his observations.
*"I can't believe Stark went to college at 14, that's a bit strange, I mean, to put such a young child in an environment like college?"
"I'm sure Howard was looking out for him. He was a good man."
"Steve, still 14 and college.."
"Don't know why your so worked up about it Sam, his dad probably paid his way in and paid for his qualifications." *
Stephy had started actively glaring at the screen now, at Rogers. He, however, was used to Rogers espousing how amazing Howard was, it was something he had filtered out within a week of meeting the super soldier. It was how he'd maintained a friendship with the man, he'd tentatively dropped hints about Howard, but none really got through, Rogers was very defensive of Tony besmirching Howard's good name. He would not be telling Stephy that however. Not with the utter death glare he was giving the TV, Stephy didn't have many friends, but he was heavily biased to the ones he had. That Wilson seemed to care how old he was at college was interesting. Weird. But interesting.
Maybe this was why he was doing non stalkerish 'research' on him?
*"I just looked up his dissertations, he got his PhD after only 3 years. Several of them. When he was 17" *
He shook his head, mildly amused that Wilson was now becoming so interested in him. Not when they'd actually lived together. Lang looked interested too. They were silent again for a while, Rogers looked interested when the picture of him in the hospital flashed up. But he said nothing. The bigger shock was the pained look on Barnes face.
Out of all his previous friends and family, it actually looked like… Barnes cared more, this was before he found out about BARF too. So he wasn't really anything to the man. There wasn't a reason to care about him. If it had been after he'd found out about BARF, he could possibly be doing it to keep being treated.. He shook his head, confusing Super Soldiers.
Then the reporter asked that damned question about Rogers.
*"She'll have to, I'm the leader of the Avengers. *
Tony just rubbed his face, that sentence alone utterly exhausted him and he wondered if Stephy would let him check out before the other questions were asked. From his amused face he'd bet it would be a no.
*"They're… They're making me, making us out to be a bullies!"
"Aww, poor little Stark, trying to make people think he's the victim." *
He just sighed, dropping back onto the bed and throwing an arm across his eyes. He still had trouble accepting Rhodey's world view, about how the other Avengers treated him. He wasn't in high school, he wasn't being bullied. He just let himself relax into the mattress, enjoying the darkness as the TV continued with the press conference. After a few seconds he felt the cloak settle across his chest and lowered one of his arms to pat it. Levi rippled happily.
Things had actually been silent for a while and he was considering sitting up when of course, they started bitching about him again. Even with an entire team, that he wasn't even one of the leaders of, everything was his fault.
*"Is everything a joke to them?"
"Everything is a joke to Stark. That Strange has apparently been his friend for decades so they're probably the same, he just went and found himself a team of people exactly like him." *
It was easy to ignore that however, he'd seen the optics. People had absolutely loved the interactions with Levi. Levi had his own hashtag and everything, it was #SnarkyCloak. Levi loved it, Stephy pretended to hate it. Probably because Levi was more popular than him. Or because he didn't know how to use twitter.
"You hear that Stephy, you're like me!"
"I think if they met me little differences would become apparent rather quickly."
He was way too good at sounding ominous.
Listening to himself, Hope and Carol discuss funding was quite good actually, it was a reminder that he was no longer in this alone. Wanda seemed to sense his comfort over time and space and jumped in.
*"It's blood money anyway. It's the least he can do." *
He pushed his arm tight into his eyes until he started to see sparkles and let the comment pass because he knew the question he was dreading was coming up. Where Laura answered about him legally owning the Avengers.
*"He can't just claim to have the Avengers!"
"Sure he can. Fury effectively gave it to him. You were the team leader but he funded everything so it was his. Fury figured that it was the best way to keep him invested."
"But that's, that's not right, I'm the head of the Avengers."*
The bickering after that was painful to hear. He was unsurprised that Rogers still saw himself as the leader, even though they had been co-leaders for years now. Wilson cut in with a quite amusing line that almost had him liking BirdBrain2.0 and he removed his arm to glance at the screen for Roger's reply.
*"You did tell him that the Avengers were always his cap." *
That it sent Rogers stomping from the room just as he started watching again was perfect. Barnes reentered then with food, causing him to blink, he hadn't realised the guy had gotten up. He definitely looked different. This was the first time he was stood in full view of the camera. He had put on more mass in quite a short time, the serum turning the adequate food supply into muscles alarmingly fast. He expected the video to cut off there, but Barnes got another line in before it went dark.
*"Can we watch Lord of the Rings?"*
Between the level of trust the man was giving him. The, at least he hoped, genuine care and apology that went into the letter, his reactions around the others… He started to become a person to Tony. Instead of an idea. More than just an interesting brain he could indulge himself watching defeat his algorithms. That he also wanted to watch Lord of the Rings with genuine excitement in his voice?
Tony's 'must help' instincts just got ratched all the way up, and he wonders if Stephy can See that because he's giving him a smirk.
"Go get ready for breakfast, I think you should tell Carol you know where the rogues are but you should inform her that she can't do anything with the information first. Then see what she says. I don't think there is anything to be worried about immediately. "
"What about future worries?"
"The Archers anger is a concern. As are the Captain's delusions. For me, my prime concern is the Witches ineptitude with regards to her powers."
He scowled at that, after he had gone to the sanctum and Stephy had cleared his brain, the sorcerer had not been quiet when it came to anger about the Witch. He and Carol were even meeting regularly with the Accords Council about dealing with crimes when it came to mind magic interference. Which of course had nothing to do with him.
"And the others?"
"The Antman seems to be realising his folly, as does with Winged one. The Winter Soldier seems to be adapting to the new century well, no doubt in thanks to your interferences."
"Not awful then?"
"Anything else you are forgetting to mention to me?"
With that he gets a heavily pointed 'look'.
"Hey, if we are doing the complaining about vanishing thing, my few weeks do not compare to your blackout and mystical vacation!"
"Pft. That just cancelled out your palladium poisoning and you know it."
With that, gold blasted across his senses again, by the time he could see he was in the room alone. Well, not really. When he realised that Stephy had left Levi with him. The sorcerer really was a good brother, knew him too well, but sometimes that was good instead of bad. He also liked how he referred to all the rogues with titles, it helped him separate them in his mind from people who had been family.
…
After showering, he ran his hands through his hair a few times, yeah, he definitely needed Laura to cut his hair. Preferably before he goes to have breakfast with T'Challa, because it had done another huge growth spurt over the night. How Stephy had held off mocking it whilst he was here was a puzzle in itself.
"FRIDAY? Please tell me Laura is still in her room?"
"Nope Boss, everyone is already in the common room getting ready for breakfast."
"Dammit."
Well, fuck it. No way was he trying to hack this off himself. He ducked into Harleys room because he knew the teen had hair ties. He usually just left his hair floppy, but when he was working on the cars he tied it up. Putting in own hair in a ponytail felt a lot weirder than doing Tara's hair but only took a few tries before it had been contained. Potentially ignored?
Jess screwed that up the second she saw him, practically appearing behind him and pulling out the hair tie.
"Jess, it took me way too long to put that in, why did you pull it out? Laura, please cut my hair, pretty please?"
"Aww, but Tony, I want to play with it."
"How about, next growth spurt when I'm not about to go on live TV, I'll leave it long all day."
Jess tilted her head, considering the offer before nodding and moving back to her food.
"Come sit here Tony, I've eaten so ill cut your hair whilst you eat. This is the longest I've seen it in a while!"
"Does this happen often then?"
"T'Challa, it is annoying, I go to sleep with my normal hair and wake up with it around my shoulders."
He rolled his eyes as he dropped into the chair by Laura, Bruce dropping a plate in front of him that was blissfully stacked with bacon, eggs and pancakes. He'd worried that watching the videos would put him off his dinner, but apparently not much could stop his stomach these days. Laura had become quite the expert in returning his hair to what it was supposed to look like, which was good because finding a hairdresser that would keep silent that Tony Stark's hair grew several years of length over night every other week was a nigh impossible task.
T'Challa seemed to be enjoying breakfast, everyone seemed to be getting a little time with him. Bruce was quite taken with the young King and they'd managed to hold a conversation over Cooper and Peters attempts to derail it. Jess was in Harleys camp, shooting him occasional glares, Matt was sitting next to them, that 3 people would snub a king because of something he had forgiven the man for was incredibly sweet, baffling, but sweet. Luke and T'Challa seemed to get along, Danny seemed to have no idea what to say and eventually came to hide next to him and Hope. The 3 girls had already asked him a few hundred questions apparently.
Carol had smiled and he'd tried not to look but the pain and guilt over what happened were right there and he found his anger slipping under it. Carol had told him that he had a right to be angry about things, even when faced with this. That she was the one he was taking advice from to be annoyed at her had just become a twisty confusion pile in his brain. She nodded at him and didn't try to approach, which left him feeling oddly grateful for the reprieve.
T'Challa was taking it in his stride, he suspected when he eventually got to steal Shuri she'd be the same, if not better. She had the kind of personality that would easily become the leader of the older teens he suspected. Probably the adults too. When Shuri actually was an adult the world would be in her hand. He was just happy to watch it. He would definitely be subtly introducing Shuri to Reed. It would be hilarious seeing the man try to deal with Shuri. He and Sue could eat popcorn. Revenge for the man's damned portals.
"Right, your done, I'm driving, so I'll go and get the cars."
Laura announced before picking up her bag and leaving the kitchen, apparently Laura was coming.
"Anyone else coming?"
He glanced around the table, waiting to see if anyone else was inviting themselves. He tapped the disk on his hand, T'Challa watched fascinated as the cover slipped into place, much to Peter's glee. He pulled on his favourite suit jacket on, black and silver and had his sunglasses hanging from the shirt pocket. The Dora were obviously coming but that was it, they'd have to take two cars.
"Come on Meowthra, looks like it's just us and you don't want to keep Agent Mom waiting."
He grinned, waving to the others as T'Challa disentangled himself from everyone. He slips the glasses on when they leave the residential district, Laura is waiting out front for them. A car idled behind with one of the compound drivers in it. Okoye joined them in their car.
"She never picks the flashier cars, but she has a knack for picking the most expensive and the fastest ones."
The trip to the studio was a lot more fun with Laura driving, T'Challa definitely enjoyed himself, anytime she was able Laura blasted multiple speeding laws to pieces, but she definitely enjoyed herself.
" So, are you just going to walk in with me, did you call the studio ahead?"
"Na, I figure you go on, then when they've started I'll come on."
Laura just shakes her head, smiling. T'Challa goes ahead, Laura parks up and walks in with him. He'd thought she'd go elsewhere but apparently his little family were serious about this 'Tony is not alone' policy when he was out of the house. Not that today would be difficult, there was a small studio audience to contend with but it wasn't that big and he'd been practicing keeping his sight pulled back. His glasses were also made out of the nanites. T'Challa also had a calming presence, he'd definitely gotten better since the press conference. Plus, his side tactic of closing his eyes and switching to CCTV worked in a pinch. Walking and doing that was a skill still in its infancy. Trying to work out left and right as you see yourself from multiple vantage points is harder than it sounds.
They got through security easily, as FRIDAY had snuck in to their servers earlier and put them on the list and no one questioned it. Laura found a chair that she could sit on in view of T'Challa, so he was facing her. He just loitered as if he was meant to be there and watched until he got brought up, T'Challa decided to speed things up, the guy really didn't like doing these things it seemed.
"I've enjoyed my trips to America so far with the Accords Council, meeting the other councillors has also been good. Everyone has been very accepting of our plans to open up Wakanda slowly, the people I've met have also been most unlike what I suspected."
" Ah, I assume you mean Tony Stark? What was it like to get whisked off to dinner with our favourite genius?"
" Oh, that was a lot of fun, he told me a lot about what Stark Industries was involved in. "
" Yes, here in America everyone always needs the next piece of Stark Tech.
" We have been surprised lately, Mr Stark seems to be working constantly but he just hasn't been seen much, King T'Challa you've seen more of him than we have lately, how is he recovering?"
Tony grinned and figured that would do,plus the pleading glances T'Challa was sending his way, he straightened up his suit and strolled onto the stage before T'Challa had a chance to answer. The two of them were so going to have to prank Shuri for setting them up like this.
"My ears were burning."
He gives the crowd a large, textbook smile but closes his eyes to avoid the overload before looking back at the host, the incredibly shocked host and amused T'Challa. As there wasn't a seat for him he hopped up into the hosts desk, crossed his legs at his ankles and relaxed as if it was normal.
"Hi."
"Mr Stark! We didn't expect to see you today!"
"Well, T'Challa spent last night at the compound and mentioned today's little interview, so I thought I'd tag along."
"Yes, the compound is absolutely gorgeous, it was lovely having breakfast with the Avengers."
"I also heard that you were considering partnering up for some of Mr Stark's initiatives?"
"Oh yes, this man's brain is brilliant, he's going to help me get my inventions to where they're needed. At home and abroad."
"Dr Stark is also interesting to work with. Not at all what I expected an American businessman to be like."
"What were you expecting?
"Profit driven, uncaring and only caring about their own country. Dr Stark is giving his Intellicrops away for free. In areas where children are going blind from lack of Vitamin A, it is a particularly severe problem in populations where rice is the staple food and diversity of diet is limited, as white rice contains no micronutrients. Dr Stark has created a rice variant with added Vitamin A specifically to help these people. "
" Wow, I didn't know about this, I guess when people think of Stark Industries people think tech, not food. "
"It's something I've been involved in for a while. There are some 2 billion people who suffer from some type of important nutritional deficiency. Thousands of kids die each day because of a lack of vitamin A for example, nearly a 3rd of children in developing areas are blind from it. Biofortified crops are a good alternative to alleviating malnutrition."
"And you're giving these crops away?"
"Generally, the people who desperately need these crops can't afford them, so it makes sense. If giving away some seeds saves children from living blind because they lack a vitamin that is easy to acquire for us, why wouldn't I?"
"I guess some people would prefer you to focus your humanitarian efforts at home?"
T'Challa barely manages to not rolls his eyes.
"I do have a lot focused in America, trying to end food deserts for example. But humanitarian efforts are for humanity."
"This is what I was talking about."
T'Challa grinned and he grinned back, the presenter had flushed a little but didn't let that stop him. As much as T'Challa hated these things, he'd definitely learnt to direct the questions into favourable areas.
"So, King T'Challa, how is integration with the world going, from what I've been told your computers don't use the same binary system as the rest of us?"
"Oh Dr Stark and our technicians have been working on it night and day. I was pretty sure it was fine several versions ago, but apparently Dr Stark and my sister are perfectionists."
"I've had tons of fun working with Princess Shuri, she is brilliant. Even some of the younger interns I have at SI love her."
"I read about your intern project, schools all over the country are involved? Finding the best and brightest?"
"That's right, as much as I'm the businessman you all love to hate, at my core I'm a scientist. I want to make sure the next generation find it easier to get into science. Less roadblocks. I even had emails from kids from schools that didn't join the program, this one kid Gethin, he just asked for some books because the ones at his school were ancient and falling apart! After that I had my PA making a list of schools lacking funding and am now supplying what they need. "
"That's very selfless of you."
"Na, I just want more scientists in the world."
He'd also expanded his Smart Kids programme. Pepper had wanted to call them Stark Kids but Tony thought that sounded too much like he'd gotten a bunch of people knocked up and hidden them around the country. T'Challa answers a few questions about Wakanda as a frazzled technician at that point ran out with a chair like the one T'Challa was sat in. He smiled at them and hopped off the presenter desk and utterly shocked them by thanking them directly. The man gave him a bright smile in return before jogging back and Tony made himself turn back to the host. What, the guy was tall, had long hair and was wearing extremely tight trousers. That was very distracting.
"King T'Challa, are you and your people excited to rejoin the rest of the world?"
"Oh definitely, some of my people have been waiting for this for a long time."
"So, Mr Stark, you know the question we want to ask."
"Go on, ask about it."
He waved his hand and relaxed into the chair, crossing his legs with his ankle to knee. He wondered what he should say, because it was going to be about his coma. He had had a talk with Peter last night about it. Peter had told him that he should reveal something. He wanted him to show the world his hand. Even though the kid had spent months working on the cover it. He said he could still use it, but that the world should know that superheroes could get hurt.
"We all saw the picture of you in the hospital. We all know you were in a coma. We haven't seen much of you since, so we wanted to know, how you've been recovering."
"Well, it's been a long road. I'm not at 100%, but I'm working to get there. I might not be in the skies, yet, but there is a lot of work I could do from home."
"We've been keeping up with your work, for someone not on the Accords Council, you do a lot of work for them."
"Of course. It is an important document, for humans and supers alike. Whilst recovering from my injuries it made sense to focus on it. Just a shame I missed those 10 days in a coma."
"Dr Stark seems to never stop working."
"Nope, my physio often gets infuriated with me."
"Do you mind if we ask what injuries you suffered? You've been very close to the chest about them."
Ha. Close to the chest.
"In general people don't think of superheroes getting hurt, so I kept that private. As you can see I'm able to work fine and I'll be flying in no time… but I'll show you one thing."
With that he stood and removed his suit jacket. Neatly folding it and hanging it over the back of the chair before sitting back down, as he undid the button at his cuff everyone has gotten very silent. He folded the sleeve up to past his elbow, ignoring the hiss the presenter gave when the thick ring of scars became visible and murmurs from the crowd.
"That's some pretty severe scarring."
At that he tapped the back of the hand. The cover retreated until the whole cybernetic hand was revealed. It was still matte black, but he'd made some changes last night, he'd added a line of arc reactor blue light that ran along two of the seems, just some fun upgrades. One from the tip of his thumb, the other from the tip of his little finger, both stretching up to the middle of his forearm. The silver decals that Harley had designed were still there too, giving it a nice understated look. He was damned proud of it and he was sick of hiding it away himself. Oddly, when he'd first woke up he'd barely looked at the missing limb, adding the cybernetic attachment hadn't improved it. Weirdly, harleys damned decals and Peter's cover had him not looking at it in scorn.
"Yeah, the scarring is pretty bad."
He held up his hand so the cameras, crowd and the utterly stunned presenter could get a could look.
"I'm guessing that is not a covering, or a glove?"
"Nope. After a fight, I had severe frostbite, my doctors could do a lot, worked wonders in fact. But they couldn't save everything and my hand, wrist and some of my forearm was amputated."
"How has it changed things for you? I don't know if I could carry on fighting after losing a limb! But I am a lefty."
"I'm ambidextrous, so I didn't have to learn to use a different dominant hand. But this won't stop me. I'm still Ironman, as long as Ironman is required, he will be there, from domestic terrorism, wildfires, bad guys our police can't fight and if aliens come knocking. I will get back up until I'm physically incapable. And then probably try and find a way to anyway. "
He chuckled and the audience chuckled to, he wasn't sure why people found this trait of his so impressive. For Pepper it was one of his worst traits.
"I guess we should expect such dedication from Ironman by now, after you caught that nuke and flew it into a portal in space, when you did that, did you know you'd be fine?"
"Oh no, I thought it was a one way trip. The blast knocked the power out of my suit, luckily I fell through the portal and The Hulk, my buddy, he caught me."
"After that I guess missing a hand wouldn't stop you after all?"
"Nope, I've always known I could get hurt, but it never stopped me before. It wasn't easy, waking up with a part of you just gone. Sometimes I would wake up and have phantom feelings of it, very strange. If anything it's made me more determined and shown me more people I can help."
"That's must have been hard to deal with. Is this why you have gotten more involved with disabilities and prosthetics?"
"Partially, I'm sure you know about James Rhodes accident too? After that I started doing research, found out that a lot of people who need disability aids are left unable to get them. When I woke up from the coma, missing my left hand, it sharpened it more. Trying to do things one handed? Not as easy as it seemed. Now, I had the contacts and ability to build this for myself, with Shuri in Wakandas help. She helped me through a lot in those early days. When I was back up to two hands I decided to change the disability aids industry. "
"Just like that? "
" Yeah, it's not something many people put into. People who require the aids are something of a niche market, if you make a replacement limb, it's only needed by a very select group and the needs of a veteran won't line up with a 5 year old with cancer, so it's not profitable. Because of this disability aides are expensive, not updated often and for many, hard to acquire. Children wearing prosthetics they've grown out of, powered chairs on the edge of falling apart, ancient crutches that cause more pain than they help. "
" You seem quite passionate about this Mr Stark. "
" I've come to see Dr Stark is quite passionate about many things, helping people seems to drive Dr Stark as much as it does Ironman. "
"For this instance, It's definitely a case of having my eyes opened. Watching Rhodey not be able to go to his favourite shop because there is a step I never even noticed, or spend 40 minutes waiting for an empty lift. I didn't realise how inaccessible the world was, so I'd like to do my part to change that."
"Well, that certainly is a good goal! We are actually out of time for today, hopefully we can get the two of you back someday. I have a feeling that Mr Stark and King T'Challa partnering up will lead to amazing things for our planet!"
Well, that went a lot better than he had expected, the presenters colours were practically vibrating with happiness that it had been them to get the story about his hand first. He shook hands with him and let the man feel the hand, turning it over and looking at it in awe.
"So, can you feel with it?"
"Sort of, not the way a real hand does. It's wired directly into my nerves, so I get input, hot and cold. Some textures, it's more information in my mind than feeling."
"That is amazing, thank you Mr Stark for crashing my show."
The presenter winked at him before turning to T'Challa and crossing his hands over his chest. After that, he and T'Challa met up with Laura and the Dora to head home. Tony hadn't had a single glitch, and Laura looked really proud of him. Which meant a lot and had him feeling like a kid whose mom is proud of your school work for the first time in his life. It was nice.
…..
T'Challa came back to the compound for a few more hours to have lunch with them before heading back to Wakanda. He took the letter he had written for Barnes with a smile on his face, eerily similar to his sisters. What is it with people reading into things so much when it comes to Barnes? He doesn't like the man, he is just helping fix his brain. Not replying to the letter would be rude. That's it. Nothing else. Just because he is slightly in love with the man's brain, that thankfully no one but FRIDAY will ever know about, or how long Tony has spent working on the algorithms for the guy. He might have finished the integration months in advance, but it was going to get done anyway. Having it done just meant that Barnes recovery could be sped up. From what he'd seen in the videos, he was doing better already. He wasn't so pale and gaunt anymore. Considering everything he'd been through, he looked pretty amazing really and his voice was really.. Interesting with that Russian undertone, it would be interesting to hear him actually speaking Russian too..
But none of that meant anything. It just meant Tony didn't hate him, he understood that he wasn't really the one to kill his parents and he didn't deserve to carry that guilt. He wasn't going to become best pals, he just wanted to help him.
Tony shook his head, trying to push Barnes to the back of his mind. He didn't know why, but after watching the videos, he just kept popping up..
Anyway, he needed to focus on the integration. It had to be finished if he wanted to move to the next stage with helping the guy who trusted too damn much. With that, he hung his suit jacket and tie up in his workshop, sat down, lay his hands on the desk and dove straight in.
It was 1am when he finally finished, he pulled out of the code, stretched and heard his spine crack. He had been in far, far too long. He hadn't spent that long in the code before, he had started at around 2.30pm. He hadn't even surfaced for break, only 1 to read the kids their nighttime books. So now he was paying for it, he was starved. Luckily someone had delivered him food that he fell on, in a ravenous fashion, as he felt FRIDAY and CERBERUS' displeasure with his inability to take care of himself.
As he ate he pushed all of the files and watched with great satisfaction as everything clicked into place. He only had to go back in to fix 6 bugs. He texted Shuri that he was finished and watched her push the finalising files he'd sent earlier from her end. The tiny pathway with a huge delay expanded and he was giddy with the result. He and Shuri amused themselves sending stuff back and forth practically instantly just because they could. Eventually though she ordered him to bed…
But he was far to wired for that. The thrill of finally finishing the integration had him flying high and there was no way he would sleep. Instead he decided to work on the new medium RT hives and reactors for his suit. This way there were multiple power sources and back up hives. After he finished up all of his food, he hopped up to wash his hands before pulling on the antistatic gloves, when working with parts so small they were required. Even if they felt weird on his hands now. They never used to, pre-Extremis.
He wondered if it was because of his tech abilities, because of them he'd noticed that if he really concentrated, he could feel electricity. As in in the mains, not just in technology. It was like a crackle he could feel along his skin. He had ideas about that but wanted to run it by Bruce first so he could tell him if he was being reckless with his own life or if it was a natural progression of his abilities that he should investigate. Tony wasn't exactly great at finding that line. In the past, he hadn't really cared. But now he had a family, a family that would be hurt if he nearly got electrocuted to death. So as tempting as it was, he pushed it back. For now. Right now he'd focus on making himself safer, harder to hurt.
Rhodey POV
After getting FRIDAYs messages, Rhodes dropped pretty much everything he was doing and immediately beelined to the workshop. Even though he was just about to take the bracers off and get into bed. After a ridiculously long Saturday. After Tony and T'Challa had their little peppy interview, suddenly a bunch of things that had been perfectly fine to wait until Monday were suddenly urgent! He was still impressed with Tony however, going on TV and telling the world he had his hand and wrist amputated. Pepper had been furious, he'd dealt with it however as Tony had been busy working on the Wakandan integration link.
There was some backlash on the board, there was always some bad. This time however the good won out. The sheer volume of people on social media thanking him for admitting the loss of his hand was staggering. The fact he hadn't had to do it, but did anyway had resonated. So many other posted pictures of their own prosthetics. It was pretty cool. He'd received a lot of stuff directed at him, a black superhero was good on its own, now he had wheelchair users thanking him too, it was hard to get his head around, all in all, he was happy about it. It had however been a long, exhausting day. So FRIDAY activating LOTW protocol was not a welcome interruption. It also was not something he could ignore.
It hadn't even been a very informative message, the protocol was triggered and "Boss says he's considering something stupid." LOTW was a protocol for when Tony was going to do something potentially genius, amazing, but also stupid or dangerous with great risk to himself, the building, humanity or more importantly, Rhodey's sanity. Watch how I soar… right into a spike.
The way things had been swinging wildly from everything is fine to, nope, not fine very quickly lately made him move a little faster. He didn't want to miss something because he ignored a vaguely cryptic message from Friday at stupid o'clock in the morning.
When he got to the workshop however the lights were dimmed Tony was curled up on the ancient sofa, wrapped in a blanket with the projector active on the wall.
OK…?
"Tony, why did I get an alert from FRIDAY that you are considering something stupid yet here you are watching.. Stargate? "
"This is me trying to not do the dumb thing. "
Rhodes moves to sit down on the sofa next to Tony, and notices his infuriating friend has built what looks like a sodding plinth of some kind not far away from where they are sitting.
An actual plinth.
All backed out. Looking ominous and extremely creepy.
He glares at the thing.
Because it is obviously why he's here at 4 am talking to Tony and watching Stargate, he knows it. He feels it in his bones.
"Tony. What's that?"
"Huh? Oh. It's a level 7 black out containment box."
Rhodey full on twitches at that and shifts his glare to Tony.
"I thought level 5 was your highest containment level. What the fuck caused you to create a whole new level of containment and then up it even more?!"
Tony just fidgets, scratching his chin whilst being heavily focused on the screen. Obviously not wanting to answer but feeling somewhat compelled because it's him. Plus, it was Tony who developed the Leaf on the Wind protocol after all. His name was 1st. Harley had been completely removed since Rhodey decreed having Harley be Tony's rudder on doing stupid things in the workshop was something he should have been told about. Rupulsers in coffee mugs had been mildly terrifying for example. He'd been relaxing on the balcony when the telltale repulsor sounded off behind him, he had turned just in time for 4 cups of, thankfully, Water, dumped on him.
Tony hadn't wanted to waste coffee on the test flight. 1 exploded, 1 crashed into the wall. Somehow interference in the receptors, likely from Tony's Extremis going haywire as he'd gotten very stressed after the cup exploded near Rhodey, and it resulted in two rogue coffee cups. It took Vision 6 hours to find one… The other is still in the woods around the compound. They have a board for sightings and everything. Turned out in his panic Tony somehow accidentally programmed a rudimentary AI into it. So when it came to Tony's more 'out there' ideas? He was called.
Tony eventually started talking when he realised Rhodey was going nowhere.
"The nanites needed a little extra oomph for containment."
Rhodey switches his attention between Tony and the fucking black plinth before he realises exactly why Tony is watching Stargate.
More importantly, which episode of Stargate he was watching.
"I should be seen this coming shouldn't I."
"Oh yeah. It was painfully obvious that this was going to happen. I'm surprised it's taken me so long actually."
"Tony don't tell me you aren't making rep-"
"WE DON'T USE THE R WORD!"
Authors Note that got really super duper long. Tldr (Lexiphile) If you are concerned about poof uber Steve redemption, it's not my style, but I'm trying to be more fair. Steve's problematic behaviour in my eyes started long before Age of Ultron.
As you mentioned a lack of content that is not Team Cap Friendly, I thought I would write this mini life story apparently, that is me saying, I have 2 others fics! That are definitely not team Cap Friendly, so I don't get too biased at certain Rogues on Frostbitten. One is an ongoing, the other is a series of 11 chapter fics, currently working on part 4. I'm very biased to him there.
Long version!
I can't reply to comments on here, which is sad, especially when I get questions! Someone wanted to know if there was going to be a 'poof Steve absolution' because there might be some potential Wanda interference, and no. I'm trying not to be horrendously biased because I simply dislike MCU Steve with the burning passion of a thousand suns, my issues with him however started long before a certain mind controlling witch came onto the scene. I am however really trying not to be horrendously biased towards the walking cardboard cutout of judgement. How am I doing this you might wonder (or not, I might just be rambling here for no reason.) The answer to this is that I actually have 2 others fics where I take out my frustrations, so, that lovely reviewer (Lexiphile) that wanted content where Steve will 100% be anything but pretty darn awful. Where I might get a little revenge, where he might get terrified by a literal God of Death at one point... It exists! ... Just not here because posting here is actually quite tricky for those of us who write, post and do everything on a mobile phone (Because of how I broke my back, I'm unable to sit for very long, so I am lying on my side most of the day.) I love this site, its where I first started reading fanfic many, many moons ago, but it is not that mobile friendly. I very nearly did not cross post Frostbitten here due to initial frustrations with formatting!
So! Onto the fics. They are also Tony/James, I am hooked on this ship, and are pretty Tony centric because I like writing Tony's brain. There simply are not enough characters that I've seen with parallel thought, so when I'm writing Tony, I can just write how I view the world through parallel thought and Hypervigilance instead of constantly reminding myself that my brain is weird. I am sadly however not a genius, billionaire engineer xD
One is called 'Deaths Merchant, Life's Guardian'. It starts at the same place as Frostbitten because its quite a good place to start fics I think. But instead of being rescued, Tony is actually the mortal form of something else. Something older, and much, much more powerful that is awakened in the Bunker. It's my twist in the sadly, very small, Tony is a God genre. But I do not have the knowledge to pull of the usuals (Anubis / Hephestus). What I do have a ridiculously amount of knowledge on is more Celtic leaning. So that is the pond this story sits in.
I have considered moving this one over, as it isn't a series, but there's 41 chapters up already that the idea of transferring makes me want to cry 😂. It has some serious bits, some parts that are just hilarious, if I do say so myself, just think of a Tony Stark with the ability to teleport recruiting people. I have so much fun with those chapters! Currently at 112,722 words, chapters range from 2k to 6k because I can't stick to self prescribed word limits, updated 3 times a week. Occasionally if I think a bunch of chapters call for it, it switches to daily updates.
The other is a series that currently is made up of 3, 11 chapter fics that are definitely on the darker side. Because after Siberia, Tony was found by some one else. The first is set 5 years after Siberia and is my take on the unreliable narrator, Steve's POV and really he just is not great. The beginning has the world in a very different state where Hydra are less sneaky and more owning whole damned countries. It was better received than I suspected. So I followed it up by story 2, which is then from Tony's perspective. Story 3 is directly after the end of 1/2 because people kept asking what happened to a certain character and I, being the lovely author I am, made everyone cry.
They aren't gruesome or torture filled like most Hydra Asset fics as I didn't want to do that, I wanted to paint the picture without going into gory details but still have it hit hard, so if you don't like gore, then you'll be in luck. They are written purely by the worst of my insomnia and chronic pain when I don't want it to spoil my other fics. It's also where I set myself challenges to hopefully improve my writing for my main monster fic, Frostbitten. They are also liberally peppered with references that I get a kick out of people spotting. The series itself is currently at 146,199 words and part 4 is being worked on when I'm able. With this fic as each story is 11 chapters, I wait until I've finished it and upload a chapter a day.
I don't know if links work here, but all this is on AO3 and I'm under the same author name as here. But let's try some links shall we? If they don't, Corvixa is me and my profile picture is a delightfully adorable moustachiod cat who some may recognise the description of. Yes I put my cat in my fanfic. He is actually called Thor, he has gone to war with many things, toasters, pizza boxes and the first 3 months he ate my arm daily and refused to sleep on anything but me. He thinks he's a dog, grows at the postman and everything. But it works, because we have a collie, who thinks he's a cat and hangs out in windowsills. I'm going go stop typing now as I'm merely rambling as I do when my pain is acting up.
/series/1595728 - It's All Gold (3 stories)
/works/21368806/chapters/50900395 - Deaths Merchant, Life's Guardian
I hope everyone is enjoying this fic and I would be delighted to see any of you lovely darlings over on my other fics. They're open, so you don't need an accounts to read or comment if that would put anyone off!
Also, I read all of your lovely reviews people, they make me smile and make the pain bearable, so thank you!
