'Did I stutter? You will not be signing any shitty, binding government contracts, and you will not be coming to Africa with me. You will stay here and manage the comms with Natasha.' Tony had declared with unwavering finality, steering Peter by his shoulders to stand next to her.
Peter had glumly conceded without another objection, scuffing the polished cement floor with his ratty sneakers and shooting a final, wistful glance at the Quinjet as Vision had marched inside, his cloak whipping behind him in a flash of burning gold.
Natasha hadn't been much happier to be left behind.
'Don't do anything stupid, Stark.' she had said lightly, but the way her lips had pressed into a thin line had betrayed how nervous she actually was. She had looked like she wanted to say more, but she had aborted into a strained smile, her eyes shifting with careful apprehension.
The flight to Burundi stretched into an eternity, the crawling hours occupied only by the continuous throb of futile negotiations as multiple voices argued over each other through various speakers in the Quinjet.
Rhodey spent three hours on the phone with the UN, trying to scrape together the representatives that made up the committee that acted as the official liaison to the Avengers so they could actually begin discussions. By the time all those that had been successfully contacted were present via conference call, only eight out of the dozen committee members had phoned in. As stated by the Accords, at least three quarters of the council must be present in order to sanction a mission.
They were short one representative. Until another delegate joined the discussion, nothing would be decided.
Tony had to get out of his suit so he wouldn't punch a hole through the metal shell of the Quinjet.
T'Challa managed to establish contact with Burundian officials. He paced incessantly, juggling a pair of phones. At some point, he wordlessly passed off a near hysteric Burundian Army commandant to Tony and returned his attention to the Minister of National Defense, engaging in a low, hurried conversation in Burundi's official language of Kirundi.
The commandant in his ear was racing on in the same language until Tony interrupted in French. It was the first foreign language of the country, and one that he spoke with natural fluency, and he prayed that they could find a mutual form of communication in it.
The panicked man on the other end of the line faltered for a second before stuttering back, this time in heavily accented French. He relayed the rapidly deteriorating condition of the country. He explained how the colonel had led a squadron of Burundian forces against the advancing insurgents only hours before in a desperate attempt to halt their progression into the country's capital. How the whole unit of men had been utterly overrun, ripped apart like wet paper by mortars and roadside bombs with a ferocity that they were unable to match with their own weapons. He explained, over a phone connection that faded in and out with the dry hissing of static, that the remaining forces had been pushed back to defend Bujumbura, and how the citizens who had displaced from refugee camps had no shelter and no protection against the barrage of shelling and gunfire.
The Burundian terrorists were ruthless in their attack, the people were terrified, dying in the streets, and the commandant, the newly most senior officer in the country's military, shamelessly admitted that he had no idea what to do.
'Aidez nous.' he said, his voice drowning in the sound of a violent explosion in the background. 'Voulezvous nous aider?'
Help us. Will you help us?
'Je vais.' Tony swore, gripping the phone tightly to his ear, listening to the sounds of bombs, his bombs, as they shattered the air and burned through a nation.
I will.
Tony turned and brandished his phone in T'Challa's direction. The Wakandan strode towards him, muttering a brief apology into the phone at his ear, and looked expectantly at him.
'He's asking for our help.' Tony said. He might've just found a loophole in the Accords, and his mind raced feverishly as he started pulling at the idea. He dug through the recess of his brain, rooting up every phrase and clause of the charter that he could remember, trying to determine if they could actually pull this off. 'Let these two talk to each other. If we can get the country's officials to grant us access into Burundi we could circumvent the need for a UN sanction.' Tony handed the phone to T'Challa.
'What are you going to do?' T'Challa asked him as he accepted the phone, his open eyes showing how badly he wanted to help these people.
'I need to talk to Ross.' Tony said, thinking out loud, already keying up a video connection on the nearest screen. Though he was willing to go against the law in order to save a country full of innocent people from his own weapons and the militants who controlled them, he didn't want to have to do that unless he had exhausted every other possible option. And unfortunately that included trying to reason with the Secretary of State.
T'Challa seemed relieved that Tony was still trying to stand by the Accords, despite his emotional drive to burn it all to the ground in order to make things right. Because, when he slowed down and thought about it, the Accords were right. Tony knew that they were right. They were just messy and flawed and untested, but the imperfections didn't make them wrong. It just made them improvable. And if there was one thing that Tony could do better than anybody else, it was improve.
'Will he let you do this?' T'Challa asked as Tony turned to face the frowning image of Thaddeus Ross as it blinked into existence.
'I won't let you do this,' Ross declared nearly an hour later. Tony had exhausted himself as he attempted to detail the urgent situation of Burundi and its people, but Ross seemed incapable of sympathy.
'Why the hell not?' Tony spat, his hands clenched into tight fists at his side.
They were hovering at the edge of Burundi airspace. T'Challa had made brief contact with Wakandan Air Defense as the Quinjet had approached the fiercely defended border to keep them from being blasted out of the sky by touchy Wakandans.
Somewhere in the dark corner of Tony's mind, he knew that Steve was down there. But he didn't think about that because right now it didn't matter.
What mattered was that they were being denied entry into Burundi by both the United Nations and Ross, despite the pleadings of the Burundian government and military executives.
So they were locked in a stalemate, hovering at a standstill in the early morning blackness of the African sky, looking westward into the Bujumbura Marie province where the horizon bled an awful orange as fires and devastation swept through the country.
'Because the Accords say no, that's why.' Ross said, unyielding. 'The Avengers may enter a foreign nation if, and only if, it is sanctioned by a UN panel after it has reviewed the situation.'
'Yeah, we know, and we tried that. Four hours ago. And they just barely started discussions after we got a hold of the ninth representative.' Tony said heatedly, the words scorching his lips as he said them. He glanced over at Rhodey who was sitting on one of the benches with T'Challa as they mediated between the UN council and the Burundian officials. They looked pained, listening anxiously to the debate that warbled on over the speakerphones and glancing occasionally out the windows of the cockpit to the fires that tainted the black sky.
'Then I guess you'll have to wait until they reach a decision, Stark.' Ross said, his face hard and twitching in irritation as he glared from the screen.
'We won't be the only ones waiting, sir.' Tony said, hissing the title of respect with everything but respect. 'There are over 10 million civilians down there who will be waiting too, and they can't wait much longer.'
'The nation of Burundi has recognized the Accords and you are lawfully obligated to uphold them. I don't think I have to remind you what will happen if you don't.'
Tony snarled as he whipped away from the screen, stalking to the conference call that was taking place at the other end of the Quinjet. He snatched the phone from Rhodey, his voice slicing through the nebulous web of other voices rising from the speakers. 'This is
Tony Stark. And I, as well as an entire country, need to know when you'll have a decision for us.'
'Mr. Stark,' Alan Sabbe, the Belgian representative who acted as the head of the committee, began speaking. By the tone of his voice, slightly placating with just the wrong amounts of authority, Tony could've told him what he was going to say next before he even said it. 'The process requires an intense amount of scrutiny. All aspects must be taken into consideration, we must consider the repercussions of sanctioning this mission.'
'Repercussions?' Tony echoed incredulously, narrowing his eyes in disbelief. 'Listen, we aren't invading, we won't be trampling over Burundian soil. They want us there. They've asked us, they've given us permission. So why won't you?'
'Mr. Stark, we are doing what we can to review the situation and come to an appropriate decision within a reasonable ' he tried explaining again, but Tony had stopped listening.
'FRIDAY,' he said, passing the phone back to Rhodey and tapping at the piece in his ear. 'Give me a casualty estimate on the ground.'
'Since unrest broke out in Burundi four months ago, there have been a total of 21,000 casualties.' the AI answered immediately, accessing archived news and military reports. 'Within the last day, the death rate has seen a sixfold increase with an estimated 1,100 casualties over 24 hours. As the Burundian insurgents press closer to the capital, I project there to be 275 civilian deaths every hour.'
'That's it.' Tony decided, his resolve hardening into something impenetrable and viciously determined. 'We're going down there.
'Stark!' Ross roared from his screen. His eyes were ablaze and he leaned across his desk to shove his face closer to the camera, the tendons in his neck stretching and tightening as his entire body contorted in fury. 'If you put one toe inside that country, you will be arrested. Do you understand that? You ' He was cut off midsentence, his face frozen in the image of spitting anger, as FRIDAY severed the connection.
'Rhodes,' Tony said, 'let the UN know that they can go back to bed or whatever it was they were doing that took them so long to do their goddamn job. Vision, get us over the capital. The insurgents are forcing their way into Bujumbura, but they've just barely breached the outskirts of the city. We still have time to get there to defend it.'
Vision, who had been seated in the pilot's seat quietly keeping Natasha and Peter updated over the private comm channel, complied with the order immediately. Tony turned to leave, but the synthezoid called after him. 'Sir, Ms. Romanoff would like me to tell you that you are, in her own words, 'the stupidest fucking genius to ever walk the face of the planet.''
Tony wrinkled his nose upon hearing those very human words come out of Vision's mouth in such an impassive, slightly confused, way. 'I'm sure she would.'
'She also says that the world is lucky to have you.'
Tony huffed a humorless laugh through his nose and pondered that statement in silence, making his way to the suit. He couldn't decide whether or not it was true.
If it wasn't for him, Burundians wouldn't be dying in the horrific masses that they were right now, killed by weapons he had designed with the intent of inflicting maximum damage. If it wasn't for him, the world would've have seen one less homicidal AI and it would have one more country.
To him, it seemed like world wasn't lucky at all.
But maybe it was, and maybe everybody but Tony could see that.
T'Challa stood between him and the armor, his body an immovable force in his own suit of flexible vibranium fibers. He looked fundamentally conflicted, but spoke resolutely, 'I cannot let you destroy what my father died for.'
'I won't.' Tony reassured him, irritated that he once again had to defend himself to somebody who was supposed to be on his side while simultaneously sympathetic with T'Challa's instinctual need to protect his father's legacy. 'I don't destroy things. I fix them. I make them better than they were before. But I won't let more innocent people die because of me. And if you want, you can go back to Wakanda and sit in your palace and watch as lives that you could've helped save are lost. Now I don't know you very well yet, but I don't think you'll do that. You want to help, I know that you want to help. So when we do this, know that I'll make it okay when it's over. I can get us out of whatever Ross or the UN will throw at us. But right now? Right now, there are people down there who need us. I'm going to help them, and I don't need your permission, but I do want your help. So, your highness, are you going to try and stop me, or are you going to come with me?'
The Wakandan king was silent, an internal struggle boiling inside him. Just when Tony thought that maybe he had been wrong about T'Challa, his posture relaxed with a mighty sigh of admission. 'You are a curious man, Tony Stark. But you are right. It would be my privilege to fight beside you.'
'Then buckle up, Panther, because you're with me now, and this ride can be a bit bumpy sometimes.' Tony said lightly, stepping past T'Challa. The suit opened as he approached and he stepped into its embrace, the metal plates sliding into place around him.
'Uh, by 'sometimes' he means 'always.'' Rhodey said from where he stood a short distance away, listening to the exchange. He waved a phone at them, 'Also, I don't speak a language that'll make a difference in this situation. So, T'Challa?' Rhodey tossed the phone through the air and he caught it deftly, holding it up to his ear to speak with the Minister of National Defense once more.
'Fry, connect me with Commandant Sendegeya.' Tony ordered, moving to stand behind Vision as he piloted the Quinjet closer to the burning horizon.
As they flew into the nation's urbanized capital of Bujumbura, the silhouettes of small buildings stood out against the flames. The sky was no longer black here. It was a sickly dark orange hue as the light of the fires a short distance to the east was reflected off the dense cloud of smoke and dust that rolled up from the devastation and filled the air. The fighting had not yet reached the heart of the capital, but from their height in the Quinjet, they could see that it wasn't far away.
Tony and T'Challa rushed to coordinate with the military forces. Though Tony wanted nothing more than to dive into the heat, he understood the importance of allowing the country to fight its own battles.
When they were hovering above the modest capital building, Vision lowered the docking ramp and thick clouds of smoke replaced the clean air inside the Quinjet. The acrid stink of burning was so strong, so invading, Tony could smell it through the filters in the suit. But maybe that was his imagination.
Rhodey hid his nose in the crook of his elbow, his eyes watering as he squinted through the harsh smog. He backed away from the open bay of the Quinjet and replaced Vision in the cockpit, sliding into the chair behind the controls with the confidence of a seasoned airman. He flipped a switch on the panel to his left and the air filters began cycling, sucking out the burning smoke and venting fresh air.
T'Challa and Vision stood by the ramp, watching him like they were expecting something. Tony realized, with a jolt that made a sort of emptiness yawn inside him, that they were waiting for him to say something before they fought.
He'd never had to do that before.
The motivational speech before battle had always been Steve's area of expertise. His natural positivity and morality had made him the de facto speechgiver. Always the idealist.
Tony preferred reality.
'We're here to provide support,' he began, the calm authority in his voice ringing so clearly it took a moment for Tony to actually believe that it was his own. This was his team now, small and broken and disjointed as they were, they were his. The thought made unfamiliar warmth surge through him, driving him forward. 'We aren't here to win their wars for them. We listen, we suggest, we do as we're told. We help, we save lives, but we do it the way the people of this country want us to do it. This is their home, not ours. Alright team, kick some ass out there.'
'And if any of you come back with more than a few scrapes or bruises, I'll kick all your collective asses.' Rhodey called from the cockpit, his tone e
asy, but years of friendship told Tony that being left behind was harder for him than he would ever admit.
'Noted. Stay close, Rhodey, we might need you.' Tony said, reaching out to grab T'Challa's forearm with his gauntlet. T'Challa gripped his arm in return, the vibranium claws safely retracted into the gloves of his suit. 'Comms check.'
'We're go.' Rhodey's voice came in through the helmet as Tony watched him fit a comm unit into his ear.
'We're all good here, Mr. Stark!' That was Peter, his voice a little grainier than Rhodey's as it was transmitted from the other side of the globe. 'This is so cool. Can they hear us in real time? Mr. Stark's satellites must have some sweet tech.'
'Good luck, you guys.' said Natasha over the comms, drowning out Peter's excited digression into communications satellites. 'And, just so you know, I second Rhodey's threat. Come back alive. We just got our feet back on the ground, and I'd hate to lose one of you the first mission in. So no dying, it's not allowed.'
Vision levitated above the ground and zipped effortlessly out of the Quinjet, gently reprimanding Natasha with cool logic that 'technically death is very much allowed, as it is the natural law by which all life is universally bound.'
Eminent Silence Page 12
