AN: Hey all. I sort of lost my steam for this story somewhere along the way, and when I went back to review it I only had just a tiny piece more than what was already written, so I figured I'd put it up as well before I take a huge step back from this project to truly reevaluate it. Sorry for anyone who was digging it, but for now I'm putting on the brakes on this story.

Toni swallowed thickly as she finally raised her gaze to meet T'Challa's eyes, finding within them the same thinly veiled dread and panic that she felt bubbling in her chest. She tried to speak once but found her words failing, opting instead to clear her throat, licking her lips as she sat the tablet down. When her words finally came, they were not what she wanted to say. She wanted to scream. She wanted to shout her fear, her fury, her panic. She wanted the world to hear her as she yelled the questions lingering in her mind, the doubts, the equations already creeping in, the plans forming, the contingencies trying to form. She wanted to scream herself hoarse because she had told them this was going to happen and nobody had believed her. But all she could find it in herself to ask out loud, her tone was so quiet, so small, but so powerful. Gone were the days where her responses would be laced with derision, with deflection and snark. She no longer felt like she had the time to keep up the charade of Toni Stark, eccentric billionaire. War was coming, and Earth was nowhere near ready despite her best efforts. Seven billion people no longer need Toni Stark. They need Iron Man; they need Dr. Stark. They need to be protected.

"How long do we have?"

The tablet had been the peace offering; it was the sign that whatever doubt T'Challa had was gone now, and the conversation was fully left in the past. Toni liked it that way. She never liked dwelling on the overly emotional things. The conversations that never fail to leave a bitter taste in her mouth. Giving her the tablet had been the last string of tension snapping away, replaced with only the trust and worry that came with the nature of the information on it. T'Challa understood what it was like to have responsibility for others. The two of them had been doing their level best at pretending to be Atlas for years.

They were coming. The Chitauri. Something else. Something bigger. It was all coming right at them, from so many directions. The deep space scans she'd flipped through all confirmed the same thing. It was literally her worst nightmare bundled up into one place with a ribbon tied around it and handed off to her. It was the thing she'd had so many panic attacks over. The place her mind always went to if she let it wander too far. The darkness. The lack of air constricting her lungs, the sudden loss of gravity. The sheer amount of enemies that had laid just beyond that portal above her tower.

She let out a stunted, shuddering breath as she came back to the present, letting her eyes roam over the room briefly. She took in the chairs, the windows, the warm colors, the Dora standing in the corners. She took time to catalogue the smells of the room, from the vaguely fruity, earthy scent that permeated the palace to the more recognizable smell of coffee percolating somewhere nearby. She carefully ran her fingertips over the tablet in her hands to feel the cool glass and metal. Everything she could possibly see and identify she did, because she needed to ground herself. This was real. She wasn't in space watching a nuke blow up a ship bigger than anything she'd ever seen. Apparently she took to those tricks her therapist had prattled on about better than she realized.

Finally, after a moment had come and went, she returned her eyes to T'Challa. He had been waiting patiently, watching her with eyes much too kind for a man who so clearly was out of his league with this. For a young man who had a kingdom thrust upon him after the death of his father he was doing quite well, and despite the fact that she knew he still didn't trust her no matter what he said she found herself needing to help him. The entire world was bearing down on the young king's shoulders, and he wouldn't be able to handle that no matter how strong he was. She'd worn that weight for years, although she'd hoped to be rid of it permanently now. After all, Toni Stark was dead, right? The world had said so.

But she was just selfish to ever think she'd get to live her days out peacefully.

"My sister, Shuri, she has been working on that," T'Challa spoke as he Toni's focus came back to him. "She has requested assistance in deciphering the little information we have."

"Wakanda doesn't have any long range, deep space satellites, right?" Toni questioned, and at his nod she continued. "So you guys are hacking into someone's to get this." That was less a question, but he nodded along anyway. "And it's not mine, cuz I'd know. So what we need is to get a line set up to connect in with my deep scan sats. We'll get a better picture off those, and my AI can run the numbers for us to figure out how long we have. I can hook your techies up with the permissions if you want?"

It was sort of a non-answer to the unspoken question she could feel radiating off of T'Challa. He wanted to know what they were going to do, but honestly? She had no idea. She'd planned out multiple contingencies for something like this, but when it came right down to it she wasn't sure they'd hold out.

Mostly because no one had ever believed her. Just blamed her PTSD for her fixation on this shit.

"You don't need me to decipher what you already know, T'Challa," Toni finally spoke, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. The time for vulnerability had past, and now she needed to get back on her game.