Chapter Text
There was something different about Tony Stark in this session Dr. Soren noticed. He normally wandered about her office at the start of a session, playing with the objects on the shelves (put there for that purpose), and avoiding any conversation as long as possible. This time, he had walked in, sat down and told her that he wanted to talk about something that he and his friend, James Rhodes, had discussed last night.
“I was totally wrong about the Wanda situation. I know that we have talked about taking away agency, but I’m talking about something else. I was talking to Rhodey last night and I suddenly realized that I never should have been involved at all.”
Dr. Sorens nodded for him to go on, careful to keep all emotion off her face. Internally, she was raising her eyebrows at this insight. But she didn’t want to distract him from the breakthrough she thought he had made.
“I wasn’t involved in the Lagos thing. That was all Rogers and Romanov, so I had no reason to be involved in any of the consequences for Wanda. She was in legal trouble because Nigeria was calling for her head and her visa was in jeopardy so I jumped in to take care of the situation. But that wasn’t my place. I should have kept my nose out of the whole thing.”
“Ok, what do you think should have happened?”
“Her visa was gotten for her work with the Avengers through my lawyers, my personal ones, not SI. They called me when the news about Lagos came out and made it clear that they needed to talk to Wanda right away about her legal status. I should have just told them to go ahead, but I (totally wrongly) told them I would handle it. The lawyers would have told her that her visa was in jeopardy and that she needed to lay low and keep quiet while they made sure it wasn’t revoked. Nigeria wanted her head and they have an extradition treaty with the US. If the US revoked her visa, she was going to be in a Nigerian jail so fast her head would spin.”
Tony paused here and stared out the window of the office. His voice became softer and slower, “I just reacted to fix the situation, because I always fix things. But this wasn’t something that I could fix or had any part in. She needed to hear about what was going on from a neutral party, like the lawyers. Instead, I went around her because I decided I had to ‘fix’ things and I knew she wouldn’t listen to me. I guess that is what people mean when they say I am being egotistical, pushing myself into situations that I shouldn’t be in.”
“I think,” Dr. Sorens paused and then went on, “that the last thing you said is, in fact, true. When you assume that you are the only person who can act in a situation, you are being egotistical. So, here comes the big question, what have you learned from this?”
“Well, even if I feel guilty about something, that doesn’t mean that it’s on me to fix it. My urge to fix a situation is often about me not wanting to be powerless, and that doesn’t automatically translate into I should be doing anything.”
“So you and Rhodey discussed Wanda?”
“No, it was about him. I thought of the Wanda thing in the middle of the night. But, this morning, I told him that I would back off the constant tinkering with the braces until he tells me he wants a new version.”
Dr. Sorens, later, placed a special little doodle in her notes – the one that indicated that a client had made a major breakthrough.