Chapter Text
Stephen walked through the portal next to Tony. He knew from their shared memories that only the fact the portal was made by him or Wong allowed Tony to walk through without mentally flinching. The exposure to the dimensional magic they used and the shared memories of Stephen's portal training had blunted Tony's well earned visceral reaction to portals. A reaction that was instilled by flying a nuke through the one in New York City. A terror they had been working to deliberately blunt in their joined dreams. The same terror he had of driving or traveling in a car ever since his accident, something which was being similarly worked on in their joined dreams.
"You are welcome here," T'Challa said, greeting them neutrally next to his sister and head guard.
"Look, I get not wanting us here," Tony said bluntly. "I'm here to help sort out Barnes and Winter. I don't exactly like the proposed action but I don't have a better idea right now. My husband and our friends are being over protective of me considering I was attacked at work a few days ago. I also can't cast the portal spell for myself so this was the compromise. Plus, Stephen is a neurosurgeon and a Sorcerer so he might see something the rest of us can't. I don't personally care that you are dealing with hosting the Rogues but the rest of my group are kind of pissed at them so keeping our two groups away from each other is probably a good idea."
"Reasonable," T'Challa said cautiously.
"I know what it feels like to have someone give potential hostiles access to your home," Tony said carefully. "I'm trying to lay out our cards so that you know you don't have to worry about us. I'm annoyed with you for leaving me bleeding out in the bunker but I don't know what happened to have you fly off or what story Rogers fed you so I am reserving judgement."
"Left you bleeding out?!" Stephen snapped in a growl that was practically echoed by the other Sorcerers with them.
"I was under the impression that you were unharmed and simply choosing to fly back in your armor. I was specifically told you were fine and were returning a different way," T'Challa said, having gone pale at being told Tony had been bleeding out in Siberia.
"Yeah, I figured it was something like that with your honor insistence regarding Barnes both times," Tony sighed. "That's why this is the first time I've brought it up."
"You are far too generous for a white boy," Shuri accused. "Maybe your spirit was supposed to be born Wakandan."
"Don't ask me. I wouldn't know," Tony responded with a snort of laughter.
A woman quietly entered the room with food and drink. Stephen watched her, feeling something off about her as the snacks and drinks were offered to the visitors. The slight frown aimed at her by the Wakandan royals just sent his concern higher.
"No thank you, miss," Stephen said firmly for their entire group, wary of the woman for reasons he couldn't explain.
"Clever Sorcerer," the woman laughed. "The food and drink will cause no harm to you, Lord of Time, or your spouse, the Lord of Space. Nor will your attendants take harm from it."
"Bast," T'Challa said, in startled shock as the Wakandans immediately bowed to the woman.
"Stand, my champion," Bast waved away the deference without looking at the bowing people. "This is one mistake I must fix in your place."
"No, you don't," Tony said carefully. "Even if you are his patron the mistake was his and a mistake can be fixed or forgiven. I survived."
"Young Shuri is right, you are far too generous and forgiving," Bast said, studying them. "The refreshments are still for you and reparations must be discussed. I will not budge on this."
"Can you fix Barnes and Winter?" Tony asked after a full minute of silence as they accepted the refreshments and politely consumed some of them.
"Perhaps but it is not my normal domain and he is not one of mine," Bast said calmly. "I am afraid that I would not count it as acceptable reparations in this case as the situation revolves around him somewhat."
"Help during the upcoming invasion would be nice," Tony finally said with a sigh. "I really don't want to skimp on what we can get in place considering whoever arranged the attempted short cut in New York had Loki under some kind of mind control. It looked just like what Loki was using on the people he co-opted, bright blue eyes instead of whatever was normal. It was also kind of obvious in hindsight that he was fighting himself to throw the entire invasion. There were too many pieces that he set up to look like he was doing everything to win but to actually fail. His entire MO is cunning and trickery but he didn't use it almost at all except as a surface distraction. No one believed me when I brought it up except for Stephen."
"That's because SHIELD and HYDRA want you beholden to them and leashed to whatever they feel like," Stephen scoffed. "It doesn't help that they have convinced themselves of their superiority and that you didn't actually see three more armies on the other side of the portal just waiting to come through. That Nuke hurt them but it wasn't strong enough in those memories you shared with me to wipe out more than maybe a third of those forces and that's pushing it."
"Loki Silver-tongue was under outside control?!" Bast demanded, obviously upset at the news.
"Yep," Tony confirmed. The cursing was in a language none of them knew but was still easy enough to recognize.
"You are owed a second debt for delivering this rather horrifying news," Bast told him. "I have duties that I must now attend to thanks to your news. Please make yourselves at home among my people. They will honor you and honor your warnings."
Between one moment and the next, despite none of them looking away from Bast, she was gone.
"Huh," Tony said, standing there and studying the spot she had disappeared from.
Stephen was grateful when his inventor allowed the doctor to pull Tony backwards into his arms. The pointed look at the Wakandans over Tony's head gave vague warning that they weren't allowed to have his inventor. It tempered their looks of sick realization with amusement before Tony could look at them again.
"So, yeah, not sure if that helps or not but there's the warning. Can we see Barnes and Winter now to discuss this shit show so we can get out of your hair?" Tony asked somewhat tiredly.
"This is not your fault, Tony," Stephen said, narrow-eyed.
"Do we need to go back?" Wong asked Stephen bluntly.
"No, no, no, I'm fine you guys," Tony protested.
"It's taking you longer than me to stabilize properly from that major healing ritual," Stephen reminded him with a scowl. "Your fight with attackers the other day notwithstanding you are still weakened from the ritual. I will drag you home and tie you to the bed to make you rest if you push too hard."
"Oh come on, Stephen!" Tony complained.
They had discovered the problem right after returning from said fight and Stephen refused to let Tony do himself more damage. They didn't want the healing ritual to completely reverse on them. Their original injuries returning on them rather abruptly was not a pleasant thought nor in any way ideal.
"You had a giant hole in your chest," Kaecilius reminded the inventor dryly. "We have good reason to be concerned if the healing starts to unravel."