Chapter Text
Tony found them living in a Wakandan village, not far from Birnin Zana, but far enough outside of the city that it still counted, at some level, as rural. He’d expected they might be harder to find, but then---they still lived in Wakanda. Other than that… he didn’t know.
Four years had come and gone since he’d seen Steve Rogers last. Tony had tried to keep close tabs on them for reasons he didn’t care to examine too closely, but Wakanda’s security was the envy of any number of world agencies---including the World Security Council--- for good reason. It was as if they’d disappeared off the face of the earth. Even his best satellites couldn’t tell him a thing. He knew that they’d been granted Wakandan citizenship in the immediate aftermath of the Secretary of State’s downfall—that had made the news more than the latest celebrity mishap.
He’d gone to London once to speak to Sharon, and find out what she knew. She was running a pub with Dernier’s granddaughter (though he was reliably informed that a good bit more than booze and food passed through that pub---it had become quite the node for an intelligence network with tendrils all over the European Union. Tony thought Peggy Carter would have approved.) Sharon---proving several times over that no matter who her parents had been, she was definitely related to Peggy Carter---had listened to both his argument and his carefully veiled pleas and escorted him, politely but firmly, to the door. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to help you, Mr. Stark.”
“It’s Tony,” he’d said.
“As I said, Mr. Stark, I won’t be of service to you. Good day.” And Sharon had shut the door firmly behind him. Score one point for Rogers’ continuing ability to inspire loyalty, Tony had thought sourly, but had continued on his way. None of this was going the way he thought it would. He’d once believed that when everything cooled down, the ex-Avengers would come to him first, admitting they could have done better, that they could see the reasons he’d supported the Accords. And he would have forgiven them. Eventually.
But out of all of the ex-Avengers, only Scott had returned to the US. Scott had remarried not long after his return and formed his own engineering company (though it was a division of Pym Industries) which was busy building on Hank Pym’s legacy. Tony acknowledged privately that they were turning out some well-designed products but… the Pym name was enough to keep him miles away, which doubtless made Hank happy.
And even after the Sokovian Accords had been repealed in their current form and replaced with something far more even-handed and fair to the growing metahuman populations of the world…there was no call from Rogers on that ridiculous flip phone, no tart emails from Natasha. There was simply… nothing. No contact. No emails. It was as if he’d simply ceased to exist to them. As if he’d been forgotten.
On one of his custody weekends with his son (and that rankled too, that Rogers had guessed the truth of it before Tony had even known Pepper was pregnant,) Pepper had sighed and said, “Tony. Whatever did you expect? They’ve moved on. Settled down. And as far as Steve goes…he knows how you feel about James.”
So it’s James now? he’d wanted to ask, but held his tongue. Pepper had always been a better judge of people than he had; it was why, though she’d given birth to their son, she refused to marry him, and why she’d been able to maintain a frequent email correspondence with Rogers when he couldn’t get the woman to carve time in her schedule for anything not work or parenting related. He’d found those emails on Rogers’ computer back at the old compound. They hadn’t been hidden or contained anything incriminating---just fond emails between friends, not a single hint or tinge of romantic entanglement. A part of him had almost been disappointed, lacking another reason to dislike Rogers. “Yeah, well, you could talk to him.”
She breathed out once. “Tony. You want to fix this thing? Then you go to him and you talk to him, in person. If you don’t want to fix it, then stop complaining about it.”
“Do you talk to him?” he couldn’t help but ask.
Benjamin was almost four now, a small sturdy boy who did not at all remind Tony of himself at that age. And that was a good thing; Howard had been a shitty father despite being theoretically present in his life, but Tony and Benjamin had never shared a residence together. He was determined to do better by his son, and if Benjamin never reached for a circuit board in curiosity and wonder, he was at least a more normal, content child. Right now he was sound asleep on Pepper’s shoulder, a rare moment of quiet. She brushed a hand over his unruly curls before answering. “Tony. Is any answer going to make this easier on you? Think about it because I really don’t want to have this thrown back in my face the next time you’re pissed about where your life is now.”
Pepper had been appalled at his support of the Accords (“Thaddeus Ross, Tony? How could you? After what he did to Bruce?”) and even more upset over the loss of the Avengers. He had underestimated---greatly—how deep her friendships with them had run, how much she worried for them. He had no doubts at all that when the US finally corrected its political course and repudiated the Accords, Pepper’s delicate hands and backbone of steel had been behind much of it. “Go see them,” she went on, not answering his question about Rogers– but then, he hadn’t thought she would. “You know T’Challa has had your visa ready for months, after you…finished in South Africa.”
He had to give Pepper some points for diplomacy there; “finished” was another way of saying Stark Industries had not only rebuilt the section of Johannesburg he and the Hulk had destroyed, but had donated both time and materiel to upgrading the city itself. It was the kind of work he’d always meant to do, after shutting down the weapons division of his company, but had never managed to actually accomplish on a large scale.
Tony also noticed that Pepper had not mentioned Sokovia, which was fair enough—there was no fixing Sokovia, not really, but Stark Industries had donated medical equipment both to MSF efforts there and any number of refugee services, at least a few of which were also rumored to be run directly or funded discreetly by Wakanda. “Why would he do that?” Tony asked. “I still don’t understand. He won’t talk to anyone from the company, but he just…gives me a visa to visit his country?”
Pepper gently placed their son into his arms. “You’re asking me to explain T’Challa? Tony, it’s been years. Go. Get this settled.”
He had gone, eventually---there’d been a science exposition in Johannesberg (another part of his settlement for the Ultron fiasco) and from there, it wasn’t tough to enter Wakanda. A text message (and he’d grinned at the thought of the Wakandan king stooping to use something as primitive as a text message) had given him their address, along with a warning he wasn’t nearly stupid enough to ignore. Do well by them.
And there, at the end of a shaded path, he’d found them. Friday provided a convenient assist so he could watch them without being seen. They were…gardening, or something, in the back of their house, near a fenced area where a few goats pranced in the sun. Rogers’ hair was long and tied back--- long hair? Steve Rogers? ---and he was barefoot on the sun-warmed earth, planting seeds in neat furrows. He laughed suddenly at something someone said to him and Tony was reminded of that video in the Smithsonian, Rogers and Barnes laughing together at some private joke. He’d never, not once, seen Steve Rogers laugh that way.
And then Barnes emerged from the house, carrying a pitcher of something that looked like lemonade. The arm had been replaced, probably years before, but Tony’s guts twisted, seeing it. How could Barnes just live normally, after what he’d done? But then Tony recoiled. How was he going to walk up that path to the house and just introduce himself now?
Before Tony could decide that, though, Barnes placed the drinks on the low table and turned to kiss Steve fully on the mouth. It was a lover’s kiss, promising much more later, and Steve’s smile was sunshine and a hell of a lot of lust. That…rocked him back on his heels. He’d never known, never even guessed, what was between Steve and Barnes, but now that Tony thought of it, the signs had been everywhere. And he had chosen not to see, preferring to keep Steve in the same box ( old, out of touch, Capsicle, Dad’s favorite ) he’d originally placed him in.
Pepper had had it right all along: he really was a fool.
He turned Friday off and walked up the narrow dusty path. The house, he decided, looked much like any other in this part of the world. It was only when you expected an arch where a Wakandan architect had thrown in an angle that it became clear it was, in some essential way, foreign. When the painted blue door opened (with a tiny mezuzah nailed to the doorframe, he noted, bemused,) he spoke first. “Look, I’m here, and it’s not an emergency, or you know, no aliens or anything like that, but I think it’s been three years.”
The look of patient amusement on Steve’s face was new, or maybe he’d never thought to look for it before. “It’s been four years. I’m glad there’s not an emergency. Won’t you…come in?”
It was a good twenty degrees cooler inside and as the door shut behind him, Tony felt rather than heard the muted click of an electronic dampening device. They were taking no chances that he might have a suit, or a repulsor, or any other kind of weapon. The mistrust should have made him toss out a sarcastic remark or twelve, but instead, he felt…well, he’d earned that, hadn’t he? “I’m not here to hurt anyone,” he said instead.
“Good to know,” Steve said a little archly. “Any particular reason you’re here, Tony?”
“Pepper said it was time I handled my shit,” he replied. “And when she’s right, she’s right.”
A small, fond smile touched Steve’s face. “She usually is. She’s doing well, she and Benjamin?”
But you would know, wouldn’t you? Tony almost said, but didn’t. He wasn’t here to hash that out; Pepper and Steve’s email friendship had, at this point, almost gone on longer than his own romantic relationship with her had. “Yeah. I still haven’t gotten over being someone’s father. Boy shows no interest at all in circuit boards, thankfully.” He leaned back in his chair. “So. I thought you said you didn’t want a home like this after…” He couldn’t quite bring himself to mention Ultron, even now.
Steve didn’t take the bait. “Situations change.” He folded his hands and while Tony couldn’t say Steve was actively hostile, the temperature in the room did seem to dip a few degrees. “Tony. Why are you here? Why choose to ‘handle your shit’ ”---and so help him, the man actually made air quotes with his fingers---“now?”
How had he forgotten that Rogers was very much not given to bullshit of any kind? “Do I have to have a reason?”
“You always have a reason. And I know what it takes to get a visa to come here. So, again, why are you here?”
There was a shadow behind Rogers’ left shoulder---Barnes, puttering in the kitchen but obviously very much aware of their conversation. “First of all, the king invited me.”
“To come here and… handle your shit?” Rogers’ voice was frankly disbelieving.
“I don’t know. The king wouldn’t tell me why he suddenly decided to give me a visa,” Tony retorted. He ran his hand through his hair, trying not to let his anger get the best of him. Yeah, there were sure some muddy waters between he and Rogers now. “I had to sign about a million NDAs and agree to leave almost all my tech behind.”
“But you’re here. Why?”
There were a million things he could have said, starting with Do I need a reason to see an old friend? and ending with This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come. But time had provided some perspective; he and Rogers had never been close friends, and whatever else they might have been, had died on the floor of a Siberian silo. And Tony had never known how to retreat. “I thought maybe we could talk.”
Rogers---Steve---spread his hands. “So talk.”
Tony tried to relax and fell back on small talk, the kind of thing he hated and was never good at. “So...you’re happy here?”
Steve nodded. “Yeah. The people are kind, the food is good, and it’s quiet. Peaceful.”
“Never thought I’d hear you wanting some peace,” Tony said. It was out and barbed before he knew what he’d said, but there was no recalling the words now.
There was a glint of something dangerous in Steve’s eyes, but Tony had never known how to obey a warning. “Well, Ultron learned that from you,” Steve said coolly. “The whole ‘God’s righteous man, pretending he could live without a war’ bit.”
Tony winced. The hit was fair, but having Ultron thrown in his face when he was trying to be friendly stung. “So, you’re telling me you just came here and decided maybe you could do with some peace after all? Raise goats?”
“I don’t have to explain myself,” Steve said calmly. He paused and Tony was forced to recognize---again, and uncomfortably so---that even barefoot and looking like a Wakandan hipster, he was still more than strong enough to launch Tony through the wall, shield or no shield. “But since you feel obligated to attack my choices---”
“I wasn’t,” Tony insisted.
“Right,” Steve said, and there was a mile of barbed Brooklyn in that tone. “How’s your life going?”
It was an opening Tony would normally have loved---talk about himself, sure, all the live-long day, why not? He was fascinating and he knew it. But the words died in his throat. He had no relationship with Pepper beyond their co-parenting, and his son was still too young to know. Peter’s aunt had taken Peter and disappeared not long after their return from Leipzig (and he counted himself lucky that she feared publicity for Peter after the Accords more than she wanted to own Stark Industries, because---as his fleet of lawyers had informed him—she could have if she’d had the inclination.) Peter himself had only recently resurfaced with the repeal of the Accords and was refusing to talk to him, not that Tony particularly blamed him given the hash he’d almost made of the kid’s life. How was his life going? Tony barely knew.
Something else he could discuss with his therapist, he supposed.
“I made some more lemonade, if you’d like,” Barnes said softly.
The level, slightly graveled voice startled Tony. He hadn’t even heard the man approach. “The lemonade is fresh,” Barnes went on, and damn him for not looking anywhere near as awkward as Tony himself felt. “We traded some of Steve’s goat milk soap to the Bartons in exchange for some of their lemons.”
“You make soap?” Tony asked, trying to picture it and failing.
Steve nodded. “We have goats. Goat milk is either cheese, or soap, or something to drink or an ingredient in the hooch they make locally, but---”
“You don’t drink,” Tony interjected, remembering. “Doesn’t do a thing for you?”
“Some of the stuff they make locally could fell an ox,” Steve said, “but no. I…never acquired a taste for it.”
Tony swallowed. “Sure. Lemonade sounds good.”
There was a soft chime and a female voice spoke in a language Tony didn’t recognize. Impatiently he waited for Friday’s translation, but then he remembered the dampener as he’d entered the house. He was blind here. To his shock, Steve uttered a long fluent phrase in the same language. “Excuse me,” Steve said, switching back to English and Tony was off-balance yet again. How had he never known that Steve spoke more than just English? “It’s from one of my students. I need to take the call.”
Students? Tony wondered. “Sure,” he said, trying not to feel uncomfortable that he didn’t know exactly what was going on.
Steve left the room and Barnes stepped in. He was barefoot too, wearing a loose t-shirt and some ragged jeans. They hadn’t been expecting company, Tony thought and discarded the thought immediately. This man had murdered his family. What did Tony care what he wore?
“You get used to it,” Barnes said, stretching his long legs out as he took Steve’s seat.
“What?” Tony demanded, irritable.
“Not always knowing what’s going on,” Barnes replied. “Steve gets calls, former art students mostly, from all over the world. Sometimes they need him for things I’ll never understand, sometimes they just want advice. It’s good for him, so,” he spread his hands.
All of a sudden, Tony couldn’t stand it, this normal conversation with a mass murderer. “I can’t believe we’re talking.”
“Does seem unlikely,” Barnes said, coolly. “And yet here we are.”
“I didn’t know you’d been brainwashed,” he blurted.
“Yeah, you did,” Barnes said flatly. “The Manchurian Candidate joke? I saw that film. You knew. It just didn’t matter when…” he breathes out, suddenly looking as old as his actual age, “and I don’t blame you. In your place? I’d have done the same.”
That was something else Tony couldn’t stand, this understanding, this peace offering. But a voice that sounded suspiciously like Rhodey’s warned him to tread carefully, so he listened. “Doesn’t bring them back.”
“No,” Barnes said simply. “I can tell you until the sun stops rising that I didn’t know who they were, but it won’t bring them back either.” He placed his own glass of lemonade on the end table. “So where does that leave us? You’re here. Steve’s here. What do you want?”
“Steve and I never hit it off right,” Tony said. “It’s an understatement, really. We were snarling at each other almost from the beginning.”
“Well, when you tell a man that everything special about him came from a bottle…” Barnes shrugged, but Tony couldn’t figure out how exactly the man made even that simple gesture look so menacing. “Doesn’t tend to make a man feel friendly.”
Tony had wondered when that line was going to come back to haunt him, but he was equally sure Rogers wouldn’t have mentioned it. “How did you know?”
“Security cameras from the helicarriers were in the Widow’s SHIELD data dump. I was looking for…something else, and I found that.” He paused. “What were you thinking?” His voice was deceptively mild.
“The scepter---”
Barnes waved that off. “No, not just the scepter. I was…around for some of Von Strucker’s experiments with it, though I don’t guess he realized I was aware enough to figure out what was going on. No, you didn’t want Steve on the helicarriers, on that mission, at all. The scepter only made you say what you were thinking. He was ten days out of the ice and you just… And to be fair, Steve was being an asshole, but grief will do that to you.”
“What?” Tony asked. Ten days? How had he not known the timeframe between Steve’s recovery and the Chitauri invasion?
Because I never wanted to know, he realized.
“He’d been out of the ice ten days when Fury pulled him back into active combat. How happy were you ten days after Afghanistan?”
Ten days after Afghanistan, he’d been struggling to reinvent his company and been betrayed and nearly killed by Obie. “Fair,” he admitted.
“So…not like you guys were best buddies or anything.”
“No,” Tony allowed. “I respected him, though.”
“I found a memo in SHIELD’s data dump,” Barnes said. “Fury wanted you to open up your tower to the Avengers after the Battle of New York, give them a permanent place to live. You said no and told him you’d cancel your contracts with SHIELD if he so much as brought it up again. Fury needed those repulsor engines more than the Avengers needed a home, so he backed down.”
“So I’m not fit to be a babysitter. So what?”
“So,” Barnes went on. “You never got to know any of the people you fought with, Steve included.” He rose suddenly, a smooth gesture that had all the fluidity of the predator he still was. “You didn’t get the tour of the place. Let’s take a walk, okay?”
Tony thought he could have said no, could have made his apologies and left, but he’d never been a coward. “Sure.”