AN: Hey y'all. Time for a new update! :D Once again, huge thanks for the support. I got some good feedback off the last chapter and I intend to try to include more flashbacks in the future. Or I might start a standalone "story" full of one-shots based in this universe if I can't find a way to incorporate what I write into the story proper. That way it won't be flashbacks, it'll just be story content in and of itself that you can reference to understand certain things going on here. Which, by the way, I'm super stoked for what's going to happen!
Important question I'm asking here: does anyone wanna beta read some stuff for me? Not necessarily this story, per se, but some content that might end up in this story? It's mostly Peter Parker stuff, one offs that I've started and I'm not sure if I should finish or not. Or maybe even end up reading through stuff for this story. Or letting me bounce ideas off of them like an overexcited kid on Christmas. Stuff like that. If anyone's interested just shoot me a PM and we can talk more about it! Okay, on to the story now! Thanks y'all!
She jerked up with a gasp, sweat beading on her forehead as the blankets piled around her hips. She'd fallen asleep without realizing it, dreaming of a time long since gone. Something she'd never get to experience again. A shiver ran down her spine as she gathered the blankets back up around her torso, leaning back against the pillows and grabbing blindly for the tablet she'd left beside her. She didn't care what time it was. She wasn't sleepy anymore. Dreams that vivid only ever meant the nightmares were coming, and she wasn't in the mood to deal with it.
Instead she dragged herself out of bed, her feet dragging behind her as she trudged toward what she assumed would be a connected bathroom. They may have had a very, very strange and short meeting yesterday, but T'Challa was nothing if not an amazing host. She was very pleasantly surprised to find the bathroom already fully stocked, shedding her slept in clothes and stepping into the spacious shower. The warm water did wonders to ease away the tension lingering from her dreams, and the cool tile against her forehead as she leaned against the wall settled her mind. What was she even doing? She'd just woken up, saved her own goddamn life, and then what? Made a series of brash decisions that led her to hiding in Wakanda like a rogue Avenger?
Yeah. That's exactly what she'd done. She groaned and gently hit her forehead against the tiles. It was stupid. She'd just done the impossible, yet she felt like she needed to hide it and herself away. Hell, she did deserve to have a good vacation after the shit she'd been through. She'd worked her ass off for years to get to this point. She'd fought tooth and nail for every single thing she had, and had fought even harder to keep what she had when things got tough. But now? She wasn't sure she wanted to fight. Honestly. She signed on as a consultant. Not a soldier. But somewhere along the lines, between Loki being a piece of shit and one helicarrier engine dying, she'd become exactly what she had yelled at Rogers that they weren't. Soldiers.
How could that heated conversation be so far in the past now? It still felt like yesterday. If she closed her eyes and really concentrated, she could even smell the mixture of sweat, metal, ozone, and something woodsy (later she would discover it was the old man aftershave Steve uses). Literal years had passed since then. It was insane. She was old.
The one thing that didn't change over the years though was the fact that thinking about that day they'd all been on the helicarrier when all hell broke loose made her smile. Specifically, remembering how fucking sassy Captain America could actually be when he was out of his element.
"It seems to run on some form of electricity."
"Well, you're not wrong."
...
"Speak English."
"See that red lever?"
It had been hilarious after the fact. After she'd almost died on the wrong side of a wormhole to hell. Having to walk Rogers through resetting relays was probably the highlight of her week back then. Hearing him engaged in a firefight over their open commlink while she tried to fix the engine had been a hell of a shock, but she knew enough about him from his file (and the thousands of stories her dad had told her growing up) to know that he could hold his own. That had been the first of many times she'd trusted Steve Rogers with her life. The last time had been when he held a shield above her body, switching his aim to her arc reactor instead of her neck. It had been a mercy. He'd shown her mercy, a final act of kindness, before he left her to freeze alone in Siberia of all places.
God. Apparently one night of iffy dreams was more than enough to set the mood for her entire day.
Toni groaned and fumbled at the shower controls, dragging herself out of the steamy decadence and into the slightly cooler air of the room. A pile of thick towels quickly found use drying herself off, and a red robe hanging on the back of the door was good enough for her. The color wasn't lost on her, considering it was her red. The Iron Man red. But whatever, for now it was warm and soft and she didn't have any clothes that didn't reek of nightmare sweat.
When she finally made it back out into the bedroom she was surprised to find a younger woman there, laying out a set of clothes that looked to be Toni's size, and T'Challa himself lingering in the doorway. Had she been younger, more spry and virtuous, she would've blushed at the fact she was only clothed in a robe in the same room as a king. As it stood now, she could honestly care less. Nudity was the most basic, normal thing of the universe. You're born nude, after all. Can't get more natural than that. Not to mention all the times she'd ended up hurt, pulled out of armor, and patched up around more people than she could be bothered to remember. Modesty just stopped existing in her life after a while.
"What, did I miss a birthday?" Toni jabbed innocently, her steps taking her at a slow, confident pace to the bed. The clothes were absolutely something she'd wear, all the way from the designer to the colors. The pants were pressed straight, a sharp black that would go down to her ankles and cut off there, hugging her legs just snug enough to not look odd; the top was vivid purple blouse, with two thick straps for sleeves and three tight buttons at the neck that she would absolutely not be leaving buttoned up like that; a cutaway blazer that was the same black as the pants, and a pair of flats that seemed practical and sturdy enough for her to wear in a lab. All in all, it was a good haul. A suspiciously good haul.
"I assumed you would feel more comfortable in your own clothes," T'Challa's answer came smoothly, making Toni's brows furrow as she looked at him incredulously. He seemed rather smug with himself.
"My own clothes?" She repeated back to him, taking a second look at the outfit. She seriously didn't recognize them. Had she left clothes here back when she'd been working with him on the Accords? She didn't think so, but she was rather busy so it was always a possibility.
The smug smirk on his face had yet to go away as T'Challa watched her trying to figure it out, which grew into a laugh the longer it went on. "They aren't your clothes, per se, but clothes designed with your namesake. This is Stark brand. All of it."
And that was when it set in, and Toni groaned, her entire posture slumping at the realization. "Pepper. Pepper finally got her claws in the clothing industry, didn't she? She had to wait until I died to finally do it. God, she's terrifyingly brilliant. It's a foolproof plan. I left her enough shit in the will that she could've made twenty clothing lines if she wanted, and she absolutely did, didn't she?"
It was the one industry Toni had always wanted to stay out of. It just seemed so… cliche. Everyone was always watching how she dressed and trying to replicate it. Making her own line of clothes just seemed too… what, pretentious? Yeah. Her own clothing line was much too pretentious, but making a suit of red and gold armor and flying around like a god was definitely not pretentious.
"Indeed. Miss Potts took the fashion industry by storm three months ago. It seems she's slated to revolutionize the world of clothing by the end of the year," T'Challa informed her, and though his amusement had died down Toni could tell he was watching her. Weighing her reactions.
Not that she blamed him. She was proud of Pepper, of course. Pepper was a genius in her own right, and anything she put her mind to she could always succeed at. She had taken the reins as CEO of SI more fluidly and brilliantly than Toni herself ever had, after all. But that also came with the territory of their… less than stable history. Their relationship had always been built on the shakiest of foundations, each of them grasping onto the aspects of each other they liked, trying to ignore those they didn't. After the Mandarin incident Toni had thought she'd lost Pepper for good, but a few months later they were getting engaged publicly (wasn't the plan, of course, but the Spider-Kid had kind of forced Toni's hand into it). The engagement lasted all of two months before it started to fall through, no fault of Pepper's. Toni just couldn't change in the ways Pepper needed, and Pepper respected her too much to try to force the change.
"Well, she always said she was gonna do it someday," Toni demurred, lifting up the black box that she knew would have underwear in it. "And she never half-asses anything. If she was gonna do it, I'd expect her to do it good. TIME best get a hold of her quick and throw her on the cover this time instead of me. There are only so many years in a row they can get by with Toni Stark being person of the year."
She didn't care if her answer was good enough for T'Challa or not. She'd spent most her morning reminiscing already, and she didn't intend to continue the trend. "Aren't you a king, or something?" she asked him instead, turning to raise a brow at him. "Are there no king-ly things for you to do? Like… kissing babies? Watching jousting matches? Hiring a court jester?"
Her attempt at deflective humor wasn't lost on T'Challa. It was one of her many charming personality quirks, after all.
"Oh, yes. I'm set to watch the next guillotine execution in twenty minutes," T'Challa played along, his grin growing to match Toni's. "And by that, I mean I have a conference call with the UN."
"Oooh, ouch, yeah. That's pretty much the same thing," Toni grimaced, tossing the box she'd been toying with back down on the bed. "Something I should be aware of?"
"Just ongoing efforts to assist Africa during the drought."
T'Challa's answer came easily, too easily, but Toni wouldn't call him on it. If it was actually important she'd be told. Probably. Or she would've been, back when everyone thought she was alive. Being dead complicated things. For being a self-professed futurist, she really screwed the pooch on that one. She didn't think about the future at all when she was injecting herself with what she would say was basically liquid fire. That was no one's fault but her own, just an unexpected consequence of the series of decisions that led her down the path to saving her own life.
"Well, your salvation for that particular problem is ready and rearin' to go. Give me a place and two weeks, and all your problems will be a thing of the past." She accentuated her words with a wink, self-assured in the only thing she could actually do. Building things, fixing things, that was her safe space. That's what she was meant to do, not play at being a superhero come politician.
"A space has already been procured for you," T'Challa nodded along, easing himself off the doorway he'd been leaned against. "Once you're dressed someone will show you there."
The pause at the end of his sentence was enough to have her looking at him again, already feeling the small bit of hope she'd had at just being able to make something ebb away. "But?"
"But there is something we need to discuss. I have an hour free for lunch. Someone will come for you when I'm ready."
And with that he left, taking with him all her thoughts of just having a nice, post-near death experience vacation. That tone of voice was a universal one for "shit is getting real and I don't know what to do about it". She'd heard that same tone in her own voice more times than she could count. The only difference was that here, in this time, she was more experienced than him. He was looking for her to advise him. There was something going on that he felt he needed Toni Stark's advice on, and that left a gnawing pit in her stomach to think about over the next few hours.
Luckily enough, she was able to push that line of thought to the side as she was shown to the lab he had so graciously prepared for her after she got dressed. It wasn't overly fancy. It was definitely nothing she'd have made for herself, but it was still nice. She'd definitely worked in worse conditions before.
She even had a couple of assistants buzzing around her, asking her twenty questions and helping her upload her schematics into their system. She had never worked well with people in the past, but it was almost gratifying to watch the kids hard at work with her brainchild. It almost made her wonder if she'd been like them at their age, in their mid 20s and full of untainted dreams. She hadn't been like them of course, but she could pretend she had been. There was no super famous, rich, superhero mentor for her to look up to and guide her projects. The fact that she'd become the person to fill that gap for other generations wasn't lost on her. She'd seen the fruits of her labor with Peter after letting him spend time with her in her lab. He was way more careful making his webs after that.
The other thing she liked about having these assistants was that as they gathered materials for the rain machine she could focus on her other issues. Namely Extremis. She was more than a little concerned that Friday had yet to be able to discern anything of use from her scans.
But she was also more than a little wary of taking running blood tests here. She trusted T'Challa as much as she could, all things considered, but it was a whole new territory for her. For starters, biology was more Bruce's camp than hers. She'd have to do a hell of a lot of reading. Then there was the fact that she really didn't want the chances of anyone else getting a whiff of what she'd done. It had de-aged her, taken away her scars, her illnesses, and left her in a younger and healthier body. If she didn't know any better she'd have likened it to Erskine's formula, except with the added benefit of whatever the fuck it was when it sucked her suit inside of her skin. If she were able to put Friday into T'Challa's systems she'd feel more confident, but that would be a huge overstep on her part.
Her hands were metaphorically tied for the time being. She'd just have to do some experiments with whatever this was on her own time without any tests to back her up. Get Friday pulled up through the tab and have her clock how long it took to call the armor out of her, try to connect with her AI again through whatever that was. See what all the limits were. It'd be riskier and take longer, but hell, she had nothing but time now.
What she could and would definitely do for now though is hack into the Avengers compound systems through her tablet. She'd woken up with the itch after her vivid dream, after thinking about the past throughout the morning. She wanted to see them. Check in on them like she used to do, just to be sure everything was okay. They'd not be able to detect the hack, considering it was her hacking it. She wrote all the code in every system there.
Her fingers flew over the keys fluidly as she input the commands and wrote the code to infiltrate the systems. It was definitely not easy to be doing it from scratch, and even less so to be counteracting her own anti-hack measures to do it. She'd lost herself to it for hours now, only vaguely nodding when one of the lab assistants told her that T'Challa was ready for her. She was too close to stop working on it now. If she did, the system would have enough time to learn and get around it. She'd not get a second chance to get in.
Just as the assistant began to pester her again the screen flashed green, followed by a large A logo as the systems started pulling up in short order for her. She grinned at that, locked the screen, and finally acknowledged the poor girl and left the room.
Toni was led to T'Challa in what was a much smaller dining area than she'd expected. He looked the perfect image of a patient man, but she could see the fidget lying just beneath the surface. "What's up, pussycat?" she asked with a grin, taking her seat across from him and selecting her choice of food from the offerings laid out on the table. When he continued being silent as she nibbled a roll she took a closer stock of him, her eyes narrowed in thought. He was being much quieter than he had been a few hours ago. "Cat got your tongue?" she wheedled at him, hoping to prompt an actual response this time.
"Why should I keep your life a secret, Stark?" he finally asked her, and she had the tact to sit the bread she'd been eating down and straighten in her chair. It was a very important question. "The world has suffered in your absence. Despite whatever it is you have done to yourself," he looked at her more pointedly then, "You are needed. Now more than ever. So tell me, Stark, why should I keep you from them?"
Her posture straightened as he spoke, the muscles of her back tightening as she felt the all too familiar armor slip into place. The armor she'd had since she was old enough to understand that hiding your emotions, your true thoughts, was a skill. The armor that had kept her safe from the press, the drama loving media, and from terrorists all alike. Her mask of indifference, her business face. "Perhaps," she drawled out, her gaze narrowed from the rest of the world to focus just on T'Challa. He was struggling with whatever it was, but he was young. He'd have to come to terms with the fact that some people in the world simply doesn't care that he's a king. She was one of them. She took an empire of her own to soaring new heights. She was basically a king herself. "You should tell me what it is that's scaring you, and then I'll consider answering your question."
"You are scaring me," he answered easily, leaning forward on the table, his own eyes locked with hers. They were two rich, strong, influential people battling for dominance at the table now. "Stark, you'd be blind to not know that you're a risk. You've told me your story about where you've been. I'm inclined to believe you, but the world state is… precarious, at best. If Hydra got their hands on you, if you've been brainwashed or are being controlled, or if you just decide that you're done playing nice with everyone else? You become a risk. You're on the top of the risk list for every organization in the world for a reason. It is my responsibility to assess that risk."
She flashed him a fake smile as he finished, leaning back into her chair instead of pushing forward to challenge him further. She'd been aware of that for years. People constantly whispering around about how lucky they were she was working with them, for them, and not against them. They were right. She'd be a terribly frightening opponent to have. Someone who could hack into any computer system on the planet? Who could build powerful weapons and suits of armor out of her imagination? Who could miniaturize an arc reactor and draw blueprints for bombs in her sleep? They had every right to be fearful of her.
But she still hated that they were. She'd tried for years to make up for what she'd done back when she was building weapons. She tried to repent in every way possible, but then Ultron happened. The world's worst fears came true as a creation out of her own mind was let loose, and very nearly destroyed everything. They were all lucky it was just Sokovia that had fallen. They'd stopped Ultron, but the damage to her reputation had already been done. It cemented all thoughts of just how dangerous she could be.
"You have the right to be afraid," Toni conceded after her brief deliberation, "But I'm not a risk. Would a risk let you keep the Avengers here, safe, while the rest of the world called for their heads? Would a risk work night and day trying to fix the Accords? Finding evidence to arrest Ross? Spend millions in goodwill projects? Would a risk fight beside you against threats that could kill us both? Would a risk come to you for help if I meant to do the world harm? Why would I inject myself with a dangerous compound with a relatively larger chance at my own survival if all I wanted was to destroy the world? Don't get me wrong, T'Challa. I've been fucked with enough times that I would be lying if I said I hadn't considered it a few times. If I hadn't sat awake at night with the somber understanding that I could destroy so much if I wanted to. But I never did. Because I'm not that kind of person. If you don't want to host me that's fine, but I need you to understand that I would never do anything like what you're insinuating."
They sat in silence after her words. She'd been blindsided by the conversation, but she was quick on her feet. She's a genius, after all. If T'Challa wanted to doubt her loyalties and her story then so be it, but she'd be damned if she didn't give him a good argument against it. Would the others be like this? Doubting her just because she was alive, a little changed, and showing up after being gone for so long? Maybe? Viz would be able to see it was her though. She would even let Wanda in her head to prove it. Or maybe it would be better she stayed away from them all. If T'Challa was suddenly acting like this then it would be only natural to assume the others would. Especially since none of them were exactly on friendly terms.
She and T'Challa had a good camaraderie going on before she disappeared from the world. They'd spent a lot of time together, and he was about as close to a friend as she'd let herself admit. Wanda was difficult. She still blamed Toni for the death of her family, for having them locked up, for trying to keep her in the compound, but they'd found some sort of middle ground at least. That was actually thanks to Peter. The kid had become fast friends with Wanda, and the mutual need to take care of him had given her and Toni a path to reconciliation. Peter was definitely on her side, a friend, maybe the son she never knew she wanted. Romanov was fine with her, or as fine as Toni could possibly tell (which was difficullt because hello super spy). She and Viz were on good terms, but it still hurt like a bitch sometimes to remember that JARVIS had died during his creation. Thor and Bruce were still missing as far as she knew, but they were good friends. They'd never been bothered by the things Toni had done in the past, or her mistakes in the present. She barely knew Wilson or Lang, but they had a pleasant enough relationship with her now. It was just an easy, basic sort of knowing each other like what Toni had with most secretaries back at SI. She and Barnes had found their middle ground relatively easily after installing his new arm, but it was strained and not at all friendship. And Rogers… They got along well enough, all things considered, but she didn't trust him. He didn't trust her. They just coexisted, working together because it was the only thing they knew, and the others needed them to at least look like a united front. If they didn't the team would fall into halves again. She was just glad she had Rhodey still most days. And Pepper, even if they were so sure they couldn't make their relationship work out their friendship still remained. Happy, too.
But none of that spelled out an easy way for her to just slide back into their lives after being gone so long. Maybe if she hadn't made those calls on that awful day so long ago. She'd been so low, sicker even than she'd been when the arc reactor was poisoning her, desperate and alone. It was a bad time for her, and she'd succumbed to her emotions fairly easily once her walls broke down in the pain. She was sure she was a dead woman when she did it. Extremis didn't exactly have results that she was confident in, and she was going to die within the month without it. So she made the calls. She talked to Peter about his day at school. About the patrol he'd gone on the night before. The upcoming school dance. She'd asked Rhodey how his new legs were treating him, laughed about things that happened years ago when they were both so young and full of life still. She'd tried desperately not to break down and beg Pepper to take her back, to explain how she'd been the best thing in her life for so long and she regretted everything she ever did to push her away, and just listened to her complain about handling all the board meetings that day without Toni there again. By the time she'd gotten to Steve it was no wonder she'd broken down so thoroughly and just told him what was happening. He was the strength where she was the brains; the ever steady, unbreakable foundation that anchored her in ways she never got to fully explore. He was the calm to her erratic mind, and in battle it was always the two of them working together so well because of their differences that saw them through to the other side. He was, despite everything that happened between them, her friend more than just her co-leader. A friend she'd cried on in the past, just as he had cried on her. There were many after-battle nights they'd spent holed up in her lab, on the roof, in a boardroom, just anywhere away from the others to lick their wounds together and reflect on it all. They carried the burden of caring too damn much about everything, of being in charge, and their friendship found strong foundation in that. What had began was a painful, barbing relationship had grown into the kind of friendship Toni had only ever dreamed about.
So she did tell Steve she was dying. She explained her illnesses. It was selfish of her, but she needed him to know. He'd be able to tell the others, to handle the fallout for her because she didn't think she'd be there to do it herself. And hearing his voice had helped cement her decision to at least try to use Extremis. Steve had sounded almost as broken as her body was by the time they got off the phone. That stupid, old, plastic burner phone that she knew he was carrying around on him still. Because she carried it around too. They were both dumb like that.
Her musing came to a quick stop as a StarkPad was slid into her view across the table, her eyes drawn to it and the data on the screen. She leaned forward and her brows furrowed as she dragged it the rest of the way, sliding away the first screen to the next and the next and the next and the next…
This was Bad.
This was very, very Bad.
Capital B territory.
Bad.
Toni swallowed thickly as she finally raised her gaze to meet T'Challa's eyes, finding within them the same thinly veiled dread and panic that she felt bubbling in her chest. She tried to speak once but found her words failing, opting instead to clear her throat, licking her lips as she sat the tablet down. When her words finally came, they were not what she wanted to say. She wanted to scream. She wanted to shout her fear, her fury, her panic. She wanted the world to hear her as she yelled the questions lingering in her mind, the doubts, the equations already creeping in, the plans forming, the contingencies trying to form. But all she could find it in her to ask out loud, her tone so quiet, so small, but so powerful was:
"How long do we have?"