Eminent Silence

by Tristan Carey

  Tony nodded once in confirmation, and shifted his feet, feeling vulnerable but strangely okay with it. If there was one person on this team who deserved honesty, it was Peter.

  Maybe it was the kid's unreserved openness, or his impossible maturity for someone so young with so much power in his hands, but there was something about Peter Parker that Tony trusted with every fiber of himself.

  And then there was Natasha, who met his eyes evenly. She wasn't shocked or concerned, and her expression held no trace of pity.

  Of all the people who had been on the team, Tony and Natasha understood better than anyone how useless pity was.

  Tony could make admissions of truth like he just did and know that she wouldn't treat him like he was made of glass. They accepted each other's broken pieces with grace and without shame because neither one of them had anything to prove to the other.

  Acknowledge and move on.

  'Come on, kid,' Tony said finally, backing out of the lab and jerking his head towards the hallway, 'let's go make sure Rhodey isn't dead somewhere.'

  They continued in comfortable silence. Peter was practically glowing and he couldn't seem to wipe the childish grin from his face. Natasha walked at Tony's shoulder, a constant presence that had never wavered for the past weeks since her official reinstatement. Though he would never trust her entirely, Tony was confident that she was genuine.

  When they arrived at the physical therapy room, they found it dark and empty, a bright green elastic band discarded on the floor.

  'He does laps from here to the hangar sometimes.' Tony said, slipping quickly into the vacant room. He opened the clear faced, miniature fridge and extracted a blue gatorade from the selection of sports drinks. 'Maybe we'll catch up to him before he gets back here.'

  They didn't have to go far in the direction of the hangar before they found Rhodey sitting on the floor, with his back resting heavily on the wall behind him. He looked up as they approached, his face drawn in exhaustion, but he smiled when he saw who it was.

  'You must be the new kid.' Rhodey said by way of greeting, extending an arm for Tony to take. 'I'm Rhodey.'

  'Peter.' he said, determinedly keeping his eyes on Rhodey's face, and not on the braces as the joints whirred when Tony hauled him to his feet.

  When Rhodey was upright, he swayed unsteadily for a moment and waved Tony off when he reached out a hand to balance him. Tony surrendered and backed a step away, tossing the bottle of blue juice into Rhodey's arms.

  'Oh,' he sighed happily, snapping the seal on the cap and raising it in a mock toast to Tony, 'This is why we're friends.' He took a long drink and wiped beads of sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm. 'So, Peter, how's the tour?'

  Peter beamed and he tripped all over himself as he launched into an a repetition of variations of the phrases, 'it's amazing' and 'the tech is so cool' and 'i can't believe i'm here.'

  While gushing about the technology at some point, Peter split off on a tangent and started asking Tony all about the physics and engineering behind Rhodey's braces.

  Rhodey groaned, 'Oh, God. There's another one. Tony, I swear, you're hard enough, I can't do two of you. It'll be like raising two teenagers. This is like college you and now you at the same time.'

  Peter didn't even hear him, and carried on speed talking mechanics.

  'Oh, please,' Tony said, unconsciously noting as Natasha pulled her phone from somewhere in her catsuit. 'He's not that bad.'

  'Look at him!' Rhodey said, gesturing to Peter, who was now crouching so that the braces were closer to eyelevel, muttering to himself. 'He's like a golden retriever puppy.'

  'I know,' Tony rocked back on his heels, folding his arms over his chest and observed cheerfully as Rhodey became the subject of Peter's interrogation. 'Isn't it adorable?'

  The kid had no impulse control when it came to shiny tech and Tony loved it.

  'Oh, Mr. Stark?' Peter said suddenly, jumping up to his full height again. 'Can I go see the jets?'

  Tony pointed down the hall at the set of glass doors that led to the hangar, 'Knock yourself out. But if I see one of my planes one foot above the ground, I'm telling your aunt.'

  'I swear!' Peter promised as he dashed away.

  Rhodey watched him go, mumbling something quiet under his breath. It sounded like a prayer.

  'Tony.' Natasha started cautiously. 'I just got a text from Steve. He says he needs to talk '

  'No.' Tony said immediately, going from cheerfulness to burning nausea in an instant.

  'Maybe you should…' Natasha trailed off, looking down at the phone in her hands, conflicted. 'He said it's important.'

  'I said no, Nat.' Tony bit out sharply, grabbing Rhodey's bicep and tugging him as he started walking away. And if his grip was too tight, Rhodey didn't say anything, just let himself be moved.

  They started down the remainder of the hall in silence, Tony matching Rhodey's slow but even pace, leaving Natasha staring uncertainly at her phone.

  Tony's stomach churned.

  He's my friend

  Rhodey cleared his throat after about a minute, 'Tony?'

  So was I

  'Yeah?'

  'You can let go of my arm now.'

  'Right.' Tony unclenched his fingers from Rhodey's arm and shoved them into the pockets of his jacket.

  Rhodey massaged his bicep absently, his eyes on Tony's face. He didn't ask if he was okay, he'd known him long enough to know that it was pointless in trying. And he probably knew the answer anyways.

  'So, I was thinking I could give the suit a try soon.' Rhodey announced conversationally. 'What do you think?'

  Tony knew what he was doing, he'd done it many times before, and Rhodey knew that Tony knew what he was doing.

  That's why it worked so well.

  'There's a lot more resistance in the suit, but I could upgrade it. Figure out a way to make the hydraulics more sensitive, or somehow attach the framework of the braces to the interior circuitry; so it'd be more like the suit moving with you, instead of you moving the suit.' Tony said, and hearing the weariness in his own voice sent shivers down his spine.

  One of Rhodey's tennis shoes made a delicate squeak as it scuffed the floor when as his feet started to get closer and closer to the ground, until he was nearly shuffling. His breathing was getting more labored and he took a few seconds to reply. 'What about that neural thing you did with your suits a few years back?' he huffed, waving a hand around his head.

  'The prehensile technology? It's not in the main design of my armor anymore, there were problems with the subcutaneous computer chips. They were impossible to maintain. The chips kept shorting out and I couldn't use my arm for the rest of the day, it was getting annoying. I've scaled it back. Autonomous capabilities, quicker assembly time, retractable plates. You know, basic stuff.'

  'Your basic and the real definition of basic are two very different things.'

  Tony sniffed, considering. 'Or maybe my basic is the right basic and everybody else's basic just needs to pull itself together. My basic gets shit done.'

  'Yeah, and it also electrocutes you when it breaks.' Rhodey pointed out dryly. He'd stopped walking, his chest heaving with exertion and fresh sweat rolling in fat drops down his temples. He grabbed onto the metal railing and sat back on it, letting his head rest against the wall behind him.

  Tony grunted in partial agreement and he leaned against the wall next to Rhodey. They gazed across the hall through the wall of half windows opposite them. The sky was fading into a lazy, summer blue as the hours in the day waned.

  So was I

  So was I

  So was I

  Tony's heart was pounding against his ribs and his chest ached with renewed vigor. While he'd been with Peter, the emptiness in his stomach had been forgotten, but it was back and he could feel it twisting inside him.

  He listened to Rhodey's breathing as it evened, letting the reassuring rhythm ground him in the pr
esent. He didn't want to be in Siberia, he didn't want to relive that same moment over and over again every time someone mentioned Steve.

  He wanted to get over it, but he didn't know if he could.

  'You know, you're going to have to talk to him at some point.'

  'Rhodey, please, I can't do it. Not right now.'

  Rhodey raised his hands in a gentle, placating gesture. 'Look man, I'm not saying that you should forgive him. That's the last thing I'll be saying until he does something to show me that he deserves it. But this is killing you, Tony. Locking this away, it's not working.'

  'You think I don't know that?' Tony whispered hoarsely.

  He raised his head, letting his mask fall. Just for a moment. And he can tell that what Rhodey sees in that little glimpse… it scares him.

  Tony looked away and reconstructed himself. It was a process he was all too familiar with. He had grown up in the public eye; he knew how to play the game.

  Sometimes it felt like he'd been playing so long, he couldn't tell when he was playing and when he wasn't. The game had become his life, and his life was in ashes.

  'Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark!'

  'Parker, I swear to God, if I go into that hangar and see flames '

  'What? No.' Peter said breathlessly as he dashed up, waving wildly with one hand behind him. 'It's the panther dude. He just landed in this sick jet.'

  'T'Challa?' Rhodey asked Tony. He pushed himself off the railing and gazed past Peter.

  'He called me this morning,' Tony said, shaking back the sleeve of his jacket to read his watch. It was just past four in the evening, so it had been about nine hours since their brief conversation that morning. 'He said he had some 'sensitive information' whatever that means. It could be the key to unlocking the vibranium vaults, or an ancient Wakandan recipe. I can never tell with him.'

  Peter frowned, 'How'd he get here so fast?'

  'Transonic jet.' Tony said, straightening the cuffs of his jacket subconsciously. 'I proposed the design of a commercial jet that could theoretically top at Mach 1.5 to the Stark Industries board a few months back. Production and trials begin later this year.' he added, mostly because it irked him to no end that Wakandan tech was constantly breathing down his neck, and he wanted everybody to be reassured that he was better.

  Tony kept well enough ahead of the rest of the technology world, but he watched Wakanda with special attentiveness.

  They were already richer, he wasn't about to let them be smarter.

  Howard had taught him that.

  'Let's go welcome the king.' Tony said, clapping his hands together, and banished his father's stern voice from his head.

  They met T'Challa just inside the hangar and the Wakandan king smiled civilly at them, extending his hand for Tony to shake. 'Mr. Stark.'

  'Your highness.' Tony greeted, trying as hard as he could to burn the sarcasm out of his tone. But wow it was hard. 'Call me Tony.'

  T'Challa nodded once, but his eyes told Tony that although he appreciated the gesture of friendship, he would probably be addressing him as 'Mr. Stark' for a while longer.

  Tony wasn't saying that he didn't like T'Challa, he was just saying that it would be easier to talk to a brick.

  'So, what's so important you couldn't tell me over the phone? Or use the internet. Or text me. You know, technology exists for a reason.'

  'As I said before, the information is…' T'Challa searched for the right word, 'delicate.' He glanced at Peter, who was hovering nearby.

  'Peter!' Tony said, flicking his wrist in a shooing motion, 'Go run with scissors or something.'

  Peter gave him a look, and Tony looked right back. Between them Rhodey sighed heavily, and he recalled in that moment what his friend had said not ten minutes ago about raising two teenagers.

  Oh well.

  Peter muttered something under his breath, glancing between them all before shuffling away in the direction of the furthest Quinjet.

  'Alright, your majesty, what is it?' Tony asked when Peter had retreated safely out of earshot, turning to face the Wakandan.

  T'Challa reached into the inner pocket of his thin, designer jacket and withdrew a collection of photo cards. He passed them over to Tony, his darkly vigilant eyes never straying from his face.

  Tony accepted the images and looked at the first one.

  What he saw made his blood turn to ice.

  'When were these taken?' he asked, his voice devoid of any trace of emotion.

  'Yesterday.'

  And suddenly Tony was standing in a dimly illuminated ballroom, encompassed by the overlapping tones of indistinct conversation and easy jazz. He was standing on the steps, cameras flashing in his face, as his most trusted friend became an enemy. Then he was standing alone, completely alone, holding his legacy in his hands.

  'Did you know about this?'

  'Tony, come on '

  'No, tell me what's happening in Gulmira.'

  Out of the corner of his eye, a demon whisked out of sight behind the bulk of one of the jets.

  He remembered holding images painfully similar to these, and confronting the one person he thought he could trust above everybody else.

  Only to find out that he was the one with the biggest secret of them all.

  The memories of Obadiah brought the memories of caves and arc reactors and Steve and guilt and bitterness and betrayal.

  Rhodey pulled the photographs from Tony's numb fingers and flipped through them, his face quickly locking down into the familiar persona of a soldier.

  Behind him, Tony heard the doors to the hangar burst open. 'Tony, please, I really need to tell you what T'Challa?'

  Natasha stalked up to them, her phone gripped in her hand at her side, full of determination. T'Challa's presence barely slowed her down, and she dipped her chin respectfully.

  Then she tried again, 'Tony '

  Tony ripped the photos from Rhodey's hands and tossed them at her feet, fury at himself and at the cruelty of the world suddenly bubbling up in his chest. 'If it's about this, then I already know.'

  Natasha crouched down and gingerly picked up one of the cards, her eyes flickering over the image with the keen precision of somebody trained to spot detail.

  'Where is this?' Tony asked, turning back to face T'Challa.

  T'Challa said nothing, carefully observant. Tony got the feeling that he was being measured and that only fueled his anger. T'Challa thought that he would go and violate the terms of the Accords if he knew where his weapons were.

  Well, fuck him because yes that's exactly what he was going to do if he couldn't get permission to do it through the proper channels.

  'Where.' Tony repeated again, and this time he didn't phrase it like a question.

  T'Challa lifted his chin and seemed to come to a decision, 'Burundi.'

  Tony spun around, pulling his phone from the pocket of his pants. 'FRIDAY, prep whichever suit I have here at the compound, I need it.'

  'The Mark 45 is ready for deployment, Boss.' came the swift reply.

  Rhodey jumped forward, and he seemed to wince internally when his braces squealed at the sudden movement. 'Tony, wait, what are you going to do?'

  'I don't know, we'll see how it goes.' Tony said flatly, narrowing his eyes at T'Challa who still hadn't stopped watching him with his intuitive eyes, a small frown tugging at the corners of his lips. 'Maybe I'll break the law.'The thing about the past, you never knew when it was going to come back and kick you in the ass. Or how. But when it came, and it did, it always would, it came like an uppercut to the nose, sudden and concussive.

  For Tony, it came as a small, war ravaged country in central Africa.

  They were on a direct path to Burundi within minutes, leaving the proof of Tony's past in grim photographs scattered across the floor of the hangar.

  Peter had begged to come, his eager eyes on T'Challa's back as the king had followed Rhodey up the docking bay of the Quinjet and into the plan
e.

  'You haven't signed the Accords yet.' Tony had reminded him without sympathy, his voice ringing like cold flint as it had filtered through the suit's microphones.

  'Great. Get me a pen.' Peter had said.

  'No,' Tony had snapped, 'If you sign the Accords as they are right now I swear I'll kick your ass so hard you'll feel it in your fingernails. They aren't ready yet, and neither are you.'

  'But ' Peter had tried, hurt momentarily bruising his youthful features.