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Tony and T’Challa exchange a glance when the first question is asked because this was exactly what they expected out of this supposed ‘couples’ retreat’. Sam and Bucky had assured them that this was not some stupid crap they’ve seen in romcom movies but they lied.
What is love?
Tony was so tempted to sing ‘baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more’ afterwards but Sam was doing his Judgmental Eyebrow thing so he keeps quiet. Thankfully T’Challa had his back because when the question gets to him he hands out a ridiculous response. “Love is when a cat allows you to pet its perfect little paw instead of trying to chew your hand off even though you know it wants to,” he says, deadpan. The camp guide gives him a weird look but he moves on to Tony instead of commenting.
“Love is being woken up with a blowjob in the morning,” Tony says, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. Well, too late to take it back now, and the old woman giving him a shocked and appalled look was so worth the comment.
“That is vulgar,” the old woman says, giving his a disgusted look.
“Aww, but vulgar is just the way I like it, Margaret,” he says sarcastically. T’Challa snickers next to him, hiding his smile behind his hand in an attempt at politeness.
“I will not be voting for you in the election,” the lady tells T’Challa, who shrugs.
“You are not in the demographic of people who would have voted for me anyways. I have lost nothing,” T’Challa quips and yeah, this is why Tony loved him so much. Normally the stuffy politicians weren’t his type but when they had met in a smoky bar listening to jazz music they just clicked. T’Challa was brilliant, funny, his cats were adorable, and of course he was smoking hot. And not politician hot either, like movie star hot and Tony decided as soon as he got a good look at T’Challa’s ass that he would never forgive himself if he didn’t at least sleep with him. Of course he hadn’t been that high on the political food chain yet, he had just gotten back from Wakanda, and Tony was fresh out of his first PhD program.
They had grown together, Tony starting his own company and distancing himself from his father’s legacy of the atom bomb in World War Two and T’Challa working his way up in politics. It hadn’t been easy for T’Challa between everyone claiming he was secretly African, like the born in Africa type, and Tony’s inability to keep his mouth shut but he managed. Tony had no clue what the big deal was when it came to T’Challa’s being mostly raised in Wakanda, he spent all the time he wasn’t in school in America, he wasn’t ignorant to the country’s customs. And he was born here contrary to what people liked to spout. Even if he wasn’t Tony would vote for T’Challa in a heartbeat because he is a brilliant leader and America is lucky Wakanda didn’t keep him. But no, people sucked. And then there was the whole being married to a guy that regularly aired the details of their sex life on national television. It was hardly Tony’s fault he liked irritating the homophobes.
T’Challa’s PR people were fucking amazing though because they managed to spin Tony into a quirky genius billionaire instead of a flat out jackass. To be fair he was both but he still had to admire Pepper Potts’ ability to take his crazy antics and make them sound like normal, run of the mill things. The time he decided to test a jet pack by jumping off the roof was not normal and T’Challa yelled at him for it, but Pepper made it sound normal and in his defense it worked. Hell, Pepper even made his friends sound normal and Clint grew up in a circus and Natasha could very well be a Russian spy.
“Is that seriously your answer?” the camp guide asks, drawing Tony’s attention back to the question at hand.
“Yeah? Would you prefer rimming in the morning?” he asks and Sam closes his eyes, letting a loud sigh out. Bucky looks off into the distance like a piece of his soul just up and died. T’Challa bursts out laughing and Tony grins like a loon.
*
Poor T’Challa had no idea what he had been getting into when he saw Tony across the bar that night. Had he known what he was getting into he would have made his move hours before he did because he loved Tony almost more than he loved his cats. He had noticed Tony right away, his brash attitude and loud confidence drawing everyone’s attention instantly. It had been intimidating, the way Tony so easily moved through the crowd with a smile on his face, winking at those he found appealing in some way. T’Challa had been young then, inexperienced, and Tony looked like a man far beyond his years. It was heady and attractive and T’Challa wanted more of it than what he got from across the room.
So he had spent far too long planning his move, so long that Tony had planned his own. They had hit it off immediately, ecstatic when they understood each other’s science and engineering talk. He had taken Tony home and one night turned into two, into three, into a week, and then they realized they had essentially moved in together when T’Challa’s father pointed it out. He wished Tony had met his father but unfortunately the man had died in an unexpected car crash. T’Challa had expected Tony to run- he was a free spirit and the emotional baggage that had been dropped on T’Challa’s shoulders was almost too much for him to bear let alone Tony. But he hadn’t, he had shown up to the funeral, he was there for T’Challa every day over the phone or in person, and he ensured that T’Challa didn’t lose himself to grief.
Tony listened to all of T’Challa’s stories about his father in the beginning, listened to his doubt later on, his anger at being abandoned, his depression when reality truly set it, and his acceptance when it finally came. He made T’Challa get out of bed every morning and when he couldn’t he crawled in too and they watched a movie, Tony chattering away the whole time. His PR people hated Tony, the world was not ready for the brash honesty Tony brought to the table, but he absolutely refused to even consider distancing himself from him. Politics was important to him, important to his father, but he would not accept that he needed to get rid of the only person who stuck by his side when he needed it the most. He did not blame people for leaving, death is difficult and people did not often know how to cope, but Tony had never shied away.
His father would have understood that and supported him; even if he was certain that his late father and Tony would not get along. Tony was too wild for his father’s tastes, too unrestricted, too willing to indulge in only himself. That was what T’Challa loved about Tony though; his unabashed willingness to push the boundaries to achieve his own dreams was nothing short of inspiring. He had taught T’Challa so much in the time they had known each other and it irritated him that the public wanted to tame Tony’s wild spirit instead of nurture it. Perhaps if they did that he would stop resisting the norms so hard because there would be nothing to rebel against.
“What’cha thinking about?” Tony asks, head hanging over the edge of the bed of the cabin they were currently staying in. It was ‘rustic’, which meant Tony likely hated it on principal. He so loathed when people refused to adapt to the new cultural and technological circumstances, citing that an unwillingness to always be in a state of learning left a person stuck in time. Tony’s willingness to learn and grow, at least once they exited the alcoholic stage, was astounding. But then that opinion was formed by personal experience and the experience was traumatic enough that Tony never wanted to repeat it.
“You,” he tells Tony, smiling at him. Sometimes, if he looked away too long, he forgot how beautiful Tony was. He gets a slow smile in response, the kind that starts off small and grows as affection goes and it was one of T’Challa’s favorite smiles.
“Well, I am an excellent subject to think about,” Tony tells him, using a flippant tone to hide real affection. Even after all this time Tony still had trouble accepting that T’Challa truly cared and it broke his heart to see how deep Tony’s wounds ran, how far he went to go to hide them.
“Yes you are,” T’Challa agrees, walking towards the bed. Tony scrambles to sit up and manages just as T’Challa reaches the end of the bed, looking down at Tony sitting there wide-eyed and surprised at T’Challa’s presence. “You are the most amazing, strong, beautiful person I have ever met and sometimes I forget how lucky I am to have you,” he says, gently cupping Tony’s face. His eyes flutter shut and he leans into the touch, savoring it like it was the last time he would ever feel it.
“Pretty sure you have me mixed up with David Bowie,” Tony says finally, giving him a weak smile.
“I don’t,” T’Challa says, “you’re perfect.”
“Perfectly fucked up, maybe.”
“Your humanity is what makes you perfect, love,” T’Challa says and Tony takes in a sharp breath, staring at T’Challa like he was the greatest discovery of the century. T’Challa couldn’t help but think that Tony should be looking in the mirror with that awe on his face.
*
Bucky and Sam were going down for making Tony suffer like this. They said that it would be a weekend of fun and T’Challa was a busy guy running for president and all, he had better shit to do than attempt a three legged race with idiots who didn’t know the meaning of love. Tony prepared to invade their home security system, made by him of course, and make sure that they were waking up to AC/DC at three in the morning for the next month. Actually no, he’d shake it up every few nights so it wasn’t a predictable pattern. Let them suffer.
T’Challa told him to go easy on them but come on, a three legged race, how the hell was that supposed to foster love? He secretly hoped that every single relationship he’s had to suffer through here fails. Except for Sam and Bucky’s but that’s because the last time Sam and Bucky broke up with their respective significant others there was far more crying than Tony was comfortable with. He was not going to deal with a blubbering Barnes on his couch ever again, and if he never had to deal with Sam trying to get into Rhodey’s pants with Tony standing right there it would be to soon. Especially because Rhodey took him up on the offer. He still didn’t use that part of the kitchencounter.
To be a petty asshole he steals Sam’s favorite cereal and eats the last bowl, then he blames it on Bucky just to watch them bicker. Sam drinks all the milk so Bucky can’t eat his cereal and Bucky sulks. “You are a fearsome creature,” T’Challa tells him, wrapping his arm around Tony’s waist.
“Damn right. When I get mad at you I steal one of the corner pads to your laptop so it wobbles because I know it drives you nuts. And if I’m really motivated I remove anything you could use to balance it from your office,” Tony says, grinning.
“My god, you are a fearsome creature. I thought you’ve been fixing the wobble, not creating it,” T’Challa says. The look on his face suggests he has a whole new appreciation for Tony’s petty revenge and so he should.
“Damn right, that’ll serve you for missing our standing Friday dates,” Tony tells him and T’Challa smiles softly at him, looking at him like he was the most advanced scientific discovery this century.
*
They had decided to break off and do their own thing when it became apparent that they had gone to a children’s camp for adults under the guise of being a couple’s retreat. Tony is tucked under T’Challa’s arm and their feet were dangling off the dock they were on and into the water. This was perfect, Tony thought, with the water and the setting sun and the quiet as they sat together. Sam, Bucky, and all those other idiots had no clue what they were missing out on.
Usually Tony hated silence with a passion, whenever his house went dead silent Howard was usually about to go on a rampage or just finished one and it weighed on him over the years. People criticized him for liking to hear himself talk but that wasn’t it at all, he just had a compulsive need to fill the silence so he never had to go back to that place, feel that fear. It was something that happened slowly at first, a few minutes would go by before Tony realized the room was quiet, and then twenty minutes, a half an hour. Now he was mostly content to sit in silence with T’Challa and when he wasn’t T’Challa listened to him talk without fail, always letting him do what he needed to in order to feel comfortable.
His other friends, Tony loved them, but they would roll their eyes or remind him of his ego and it hurt every time. It hurt even more when Tony couldn’t stop, compelled to keep the room from falling silent so much that he accidentally took up all the space. T’Challa though, he never mistook that for vanity or ego, right away he recognized that Tony needed the noise and he worked with it. Once, when Tony got sick and he lost his voice T’Challa filled the silence with music, taking care of Tony all the while. Sometimes he would talk too, or put on a movie, but he never let the room fall silent for too long and god did Tony need that.
T’Challa always saw through his bullshit and he always saw Tony through to the bitter end no matter how horrible the trip to that end was. He deserved so, so much better than what Tony could ever even hope to offer but he was far too selfish to let go. Even when things got bad, and things got bad with him, T’Challa was always there.
“What are you thinking about?” T’Challa asks, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
“You,” Tony says, tipping his head up to grin at him.
T’Challa ducks his head, a light blush bringing a bit of pink to the brown of his cheeks, “I’m sure you have better things to think about,” he says. Tony doesn’t, even if he thought through every way T’Challa has ever helped him he’d be sitting there for hours thinking of more, and more from that. There was just too much that he owed to T’Challa.
“Give me an hour, then I’ll be hungry,” he quips and T’Challa laughs, shaking his head. He might joke but T’Challa was one of the best things to ever happen to him, he did all the things Rhodey and Pepper couldn’t. Neither of them were any good with his mental health but T’Challa always knew what to do.
“What’s inspired that look on your face?” T’Challa asks softly.
“My shitty mental health. You’ve always known what to do,” he says quietly, gratefully. He remembered when the drinking got out of hand, how horrible he had been, how fed up everyone had gotten with him. T’Challa though, he never got fed up, never showed that he was annoyed even when Tony tried really, really hard to push him away. T’Challa deserved better, he knew, and he did damn near everything in his power to get T’Challa to hate him and none of it worked. His methods worked on Rhodey, and Pepper, and the rest of his friends too but not T’Challa. Tony had always wondered if he was a masochist or something.
“It has never been a hardship to work with you, all you needed was love and support,” T’Challa says. As if things were ever that easy, they never have been with him.
“I was horrible to you, to everyone. I have no idea why you even stuck around, I didn’t deserve you. Still don’t,” he says. It wasn’t meant to be self-depreciative, it was a simple fact that was useless to deny.
“Tony,” T’Challa says, tipping Tony’s head up. “You were in pain, you needed someone to support you, even when you tried to do your very best to make sure no one was left. It was not an easy task, you are very good at pushing people’s buttons, but someone needed to stick by you until you learned to stand on your own again. As tedious as you can get loving you has never been difficult for me, even when others thought it should be.” He can see the love and care on T’Challa’s face and he doesn’t deserve something this good.
“You aren’t the only person that could have done that, but you stuck around anyways,” he points out. Rhodey and Pepper would have come back; they always did even when they shouldn’t. He has no shortage of moral failings to choose from, let alone how they negatively affect people.
T’Challa sighs, “I know that someone, probably Rhodey, would have come back for you eventually but how long would that take? More than enough time for you to learn that everyone leaves eventually, or rather reinforce that. I know your friends mean well, Tony, but they have no understanding of your mental health and they often treat it as a joke or make unfair ultimatums and act surprised when you react badly. They tell you to talk to them, to trust them, but every time you try to trust them with your issues you’re shrugged off or ignored. I could not stand by and let you fall into a pit of alcohol and depression because everyone around you decided that you gave yourself a mental illness and were somehow deserving of the consequences. You were horrible, yes, but you have also acknowledged those problems and learned from them. And there is something to be said about the way you use the destruction of social relationships as a method of self-harm. I was tired of everyone else doing nothing.”
Tony presses his face into T’Challa’s chest and breaths in his scent, comforted that at least one person got it. “I wish I had’ve met you sooner,” he murmurs. The only other person to understand how his mental health affected him was Bucky, who reacted in similar ways, lashing out towards those who care about him in an effort to isolate himself. Sometimes they talked about it because it was too much to talk about it with anyone else. Except Bucky actually got sympathy from the rest of the friend group and Tony… didn’t. And he got it, he was a handful and no one should really have to deal with his shit but it still hurt when people sympathized with Bucky and scoffed at him. And then they followed that up by telling him that he could talk to them any time without ever realizing the irony of their words. He knew he couldn’t talk to them and that’s why he didn’t, and then they got mad that he didn’t tell them things.
Excuse him for not wanting to be scoffed at, shrugged off, or told that his problems weren’t real while he was bordering on a panic attack in that very moment. T’Challa had always been good at taking things as they came and working with him as he figured things out. Bucky too, which was why Tony was personally betrayed that Bucky would subject him to this couple’s retreat torture.
“I wish that I had met you sooner too, I could have benefited from it,” T’Challa says.
He snorts, “how?” As if he has taught T’Challa anything over the years, all this time he’s been Tony’s anchor, making sure he didn’t fly off somewhere or drown. And Tony, he didn’t know what he had to offer but shit he hoped it didn’t go anywhere.
“You taught me what it meant to stand by someone when no one else would, or could. My friends all abandoned me when my father died, you know, except for you. We’d been dating for just over a month and I expected you to run, I would have. But you didn’t and I’m not sure where I would be without that help through my grieving process. You are so much more to me than you know,” T’Challa says, pressing a kiss into his hair. Tony smiles softly into T’Challa’s shirt and wishes for this to last forever.
*
Tony looked ready to throw himself off a cliff he was so annoyed. T’Challa was unsurprised, he found the notion of soul mates a completely irrational and limiting concept and the word had been mentioned a good seven times by now. “You look like you’re just dying to say something,” the camp leader says to Tony and he finally lets out an irritated sigh. T’Challa could hear the rant coming and Sam was giving him that shut him up now look but he was not going to curb Tony’s opinions simply because his bluntness made everyone else uncomfortable.
“Yeah, maybe just dying,” Tony says sarcastically. “Come on people, soul mates? You seriously think that out of nine billion people on this planet one person is made for you? That’s the most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life. And god, how arrogant do you have to be to assume that you’re the one that was made for your partner? There is always someone better than you, smarter than you, more suited to your partner than you are. It is so, so, egotistical to assume that it doesn’t get better than whatever you have to offer because no matter what you have to offer there will always be a better. The point isn’t to be the perfect person for your partner because you never will be, but I’ll be damned if I don’t spend my entire life working my ass off to try to be that person,” he says.
Sam’s jaw drops in surprise and that was everything wrong with how Tony’s friends viewed him. They were always so surprised when he pulled something thoughtful out like that because, like the media, they had a tendency to mistake his arrogant façade for the man underneath. Tony might not be easy to deal with but if he trusted you he allowed you to see past the exterior he has worked so hard to show the world. T’Challa was sad that more people did not see what was so obvious to him- even when Tony was being a genuine ass.
“I think you’re perfect just the way you are,” he tells Tony.
“Please, if you could change the fact that I’m a blanket hog you would,” he says.
“I… yes, that is true,” he mumbles. After spending a large portion of his childhood in Wakanda he grew used to the humid temperature and now he had a strong dislike to the cold. Spending his teen years in Britain had been horrible and wet.
“See? No one is perfect and your lovey-dovey soul mate shit sickens me,” he says and T’Challa struggles not to laugh at Tony’s wrinkled nose.
“Tony,” he says firmly.
“Fine, sorry I insulted your stupid soul mate thing,” he mumbles. T’Challa will always be amazed at the number of ways Tony managed to hand out hack handed apologizes. Like the time he apologized to Justin Hammer for correcting his absolute lack of intelligence and then quickly following that up for advice on how to sell his company, for the ‘greater good’ according to Tony.
*
Sam and Bucky give them irritated looks and Tony sticks his tongue out at them. “How the hell did you two come out with a stronger relationship when you skipped all the activities? And Tony, how the hell did you get WIFI?” Sam asks.
“We came out stronger because we’re smart enough to realize that remembering who said ‘I love you’ first is irrelevant if you both say it now. And no WIFI for you, that’s for making me suffer for en entire weekend with scratchy sheets,” Tony says, making a face at Sam.
“Okay but I didn’t really wanna go, I just sort of indulged Sam a little so that he’d stop eating my cereal,” Bucky says, shuffling closer to Tony.
“Well I’m never going to stop eating your cereal now, Barnes,” Sam tells him, hands on his hips.
“You’ll never find the milk,” Bucky says, narrowing his eyes dangerously. They go off on a rant over cereal and milk and who bought what and who owed whom. Tony shakes his head as the two start gong back in the records, pulling out pixie stix as evidence of being owed something. He didn’t get their relationship but damn did they love each other. No one was allowed to make fun of Bucky and Sam but Bucky and Sam. They were weirdly protective about it but then Tony and T’Challa were weirdly protective about science talk but they used that as foreplay. God, he hoped Sam and Bucky were not practicing some foreplay around unwitting friends right now.
He’s scrolling through his phone when someone walks up and it takes him a moment to place the old woman’s face as the woman that had been horrified with his definition of love. To be fair morning blow jobs weren’t really love but they came close. “I can’t say I like you, but you’re a rare bird,” she tells him.
Tony grins at T’Challa, “hear that? I’m a rare bird, like a peacock but prettier and flashier,” he says proudly.
“Good luck,” the woman says to T’Challa, still eyeing Toy wearily, “and for the record I think you would make a great president.”
T’Challa smiles, “thank you,” he says genuinely, “and I need no luck with Tony, only the power of the gods to help me out.”
“Send a little my way, Bucky won’t stay in line,” Sam says.
“Neither do you, why do I have to I have to stay in line if you don’t have to stay in line?” Bucky asks, whines really.
“Because staying out of line is my thing,” Sam says.
“Well I started it.”
“Yeah, but I did it better.”
“Who told you that? Riley? He’s your best friend, he’s supposed to lie for your benefit,” Bucky says.
“Explains why Steve keeps telling everyone you’re good at art,” Sam quips back.
“My art might be terrible but at least it doesn’t look like visual fart like yours,” Bucky shoots back.
“Okay but we can both agree that Natasha’s art is so ugly it should be illegal,” Sam says.
“Oh my god I can’t believe she did that to our eyes,” Bucky agrees and they go off on another bicker rant.
*
Pepper paces nervously and T’Challa wants to tell her to have some damn faith in his poor husband. Tony might be an overly blunt ass but he knew when to tone it down ever so slightly. Mostly because ever so slightly was all he was capable of. Christine, however, does it for him. “Relax, Potts, Stark’s got this,” she says and T’Challa reminds himself to give her a raise.
“If he says something inflammatory this late in the race I can’t fix it, he’ll ruin the whole thing,” Pepper says and T’Challa clenched his jaw in annoyance.
“Potts, he’s got this, trust me. I know him, I know he isn’t going to botch this,” Christine says. He hadn’t much cared for the woman when they first met, he was about eighty percent sure that she’s slept with Tony and besides that he simply didn’t care for her as a person. She has a very grating personality but Tony had insisted on hiring her and that had quickly paid off. She might be underhanded and extremely discordant but she was damn good at her job and her bluntness often paid off when he needed information fast. Plus she had faith in Tony when no one else did and that was always a bonus in his books.
They share a look and turn to the back stage T.V screens to watch Tony’s interview. T’Challa would be joining him later of course, but in the meantime Tony was flying solo and that clearly made Pepper nervous. Eventually the inevitable question came- who vote for T’Challa over the other candidates, and Pepper holds her breath.
Tony pauses and Pepper lets the breath out, “oh thank god he’s thinking before he speaks, this is a good sign,” she says.
“Look, I get that the government sucks ass and that politicians are a bunch of dirty, underhanded, paid off assholes with a superiority complex,” Tony starts and Pepper swears.
“Damnit, I thought he might say something good,” she mumbles. He was not done yet but T’Challa figured that he would let Tony do the talking.
“But there is a reason I married T’Challa aside from his freakishly nice ass. I know that the government doesn’t always do a good job representing its citizens and a lot of people go unnoticed or over looked. I know that a lot of people might not trust a guy named T’Challa but I mean we voted in Rumlow twice, at this point could we do worse? But that’s beside the point, I know what it’s like to be left behind and I get that rich white guys aren’t usually the ones left out. But that’s what happens when you have crippling mental health issues and an alcohol addiction and its no one’s fault, just sometimes people can’t handle other people’s problems. It happens. But T’Challa was there for me every step of the way because that’s what he does when he notices people are falling behind; he reaches out to them and helps them. And it doesn’t matter how tough things get, how bad things are, he will always be there to help you when you need it the most because that is who T’Challa is. If you want someone who will look at those who get overlooked, who will represent the people who usually get left behind, and who genuinely cares about his people than vote for T’Challa. I might be a bit biased, but really, your alternative is Aldrich Killian and I’m just gunna say what everyone is thinking. If he likes pineapples on his pizza he is not fit to lead this country. It’s a fact,” Tony says flippantly.
What Tony conveniently leaves out is that T’Challa also liked pineapples on his pizza because he was not afraid of the flavor pop. Tony had bland pizza tastes for not enjoying pineapple on his pizza.
Behind him Pepper takes a breath, “you know what, that pretty good. That whole first bit was horrible but the last bit was good. Not that last last bit, but the middle bit, that was fine. We’ll be okay,” she says, blowing out a nervous breath. Of course it was, Tony always pulled through for those that needed him because he didn’t leave people behind either, it was why T’Challa loved him so much.
*
“Okay, so like you definitely won, right?” Tony asks, cameras going off as his voice echoes through the microphones on the podium.
“Yes, and I don’t know what you’re thinking but you need to stop it,” he says, eyebrows raised.
Tony grins, “I’m totally going to jerk off in the Oval Office,” he says and T’Challa hangs his head, sighing as the crowd goes hog wild.
“You’re going to get me impeached,” he says.
“Rumlow made it through two terms as president without being impeached, you’ll be fine honey. And for real, look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t thought about it.” Everyone has thought about it. It was just how the world worked.
“I can honestly say that I have not,” T’Challa says and he’s serious too, Tony can tell.
“You have a sad imagination but I will stay with you anyways. For the cats.” T’Challa sighs deeply and Tony grins, “rare bird, honey, prettier and flashier than a peacock.”
“So I’m reminded every day, when you come up with something even more colorful and sexual than what came last,” T’Challa says.
“It’s who I am inside,” Tony says cheerfully.
“Who you are inside is going to get me impeached but I’ll stay with you anyways. For the cats.”