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One
It was supposed to be an easy mission, it was supposed to be an easy mission. That was all that was running through Rhodey’s mind as he made his way over to Tony's last known location.
A Hydra base, small in comparison to the ones they’d taken down before, ought to have been in and out–a simple mission. Tony had just been checking in to assure him that everything was all clear on his end when Rhodey could make out the loud, too loud, god, how close was it, sound of gunfire. Tony’s comms had cut not even a minute later.
Rhodey had never dealt with Hydra goons so efficiently before. He remembered the sound of repulsors firing, of guns going off, but all he could think about was Tony. He would be alive. He would be okay. He had to be. He didn’t know what he would do if something happened to him. His stomach churned at the thought of never again hearing Tony laugh, never again watching a movie together, or listening to all those dumb nicknames that never failed to make him smile.
He pushed the thrusters on his suit harder than he should have, feeling them struggle from the damage they’d already taken, but Rhodey had more important things to worry about. His landing probably ruined them further; the only thing he could focus on was scanning the area for any hint of red and gold. The hallway was filled with dead Hydra operatives and the smell of gunsmoke, but the only red Rhodey could see was blood.
A metal clang sounded from behind him and Rhodey whirled around with a repulsor raised. There stood Tony, looking only a little worse for wear, and Rhodey could’ve collapsed from the weight of the relief that washed through him.
Tony seemed unconcerned as he swaggered his way over to where Rhodey was standing. “Hey, honeybear. Yeah, there was a small problem with one of the thugs but I–oof.”
Rhodey crossed the room in four long strides and had Tony enveloped in a hug before he could finish his sentence. Rhodey was so close he could’ve kissed him, should’ve kissed him, started to turn his head when Tony let out a strangled laugh and pulled away.
“Hey, watch the suit, platypus, these things aren’t cheap, you know,” Tony joked, now fully out of Rhodey’s grasp. “Some Hydra goon got a good hit to the side of my head, nothing to worry about.”
Tony looked away from him, and Rhodey stopped breathing. Did Tony know that he’d almost–? Tony’s wince as he turned his head back to him disabused him of that notion. “Let’s get you to medbay,” Rhodey said. “Get that head looked at.”
“Aw, you do care,” Tony replied with a grin, and Rhodey smiled back.
Two
Tony had looked at the clock at least twenty times in the hours he had been waiting for Rhodey to return from a mission, but if anyone asked, he would never admit it. So far, he had put away his laundry, brought up all of his dishes from the lab and washed them, and even wiped down the counters in the kitchen. If Pepper walked in right at this moment, she would think he was having a midlife crisis. He was not , he was just worried and not going to admit it. A perfectly healthy coping skill, if you asked him.
Just as he was about to consider going back to the lab to get some work done, the elevator doors dinged open and Tony did his best to look nonchalant, grabbing a glass from the cupboard. As he filled his cup up with a pitcher of protein smoothie from the fridge, he could hear Rhodey shuffling around behind him. Cup filled, Tony turned back around to the island to see Rhodey ,home, finally home, looking dead as he sank down onto a barstool.
“Rough mission?” Tony asked, sipping at his drink.
In lieu of answering, Rhodey scowled at the smoothie. “I can’t believe you drink that crap,” he said instead.
“Well, this crap is supposed to be good for my body. Apparently not getting enough sunlight can be bad for you, who knew?”
Normally Rhodey would’ve let out at least a chuckle at that, but today, nothing. Tony grimaced, taking another sip, but before he could make a second go at conversation, Rhodey pushed away from the table.
“I should go,” he said. “I’ve got to write my mission report and I have a long overdue date with my shower then my bed. I just wanted to stop in and say hi before I left.”
“You sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?” Tony blurted out.
Rhodey hesitated for a moment, but shook his head. “I really should get going; I have to talk to Pepper about something anyway.”
Tony watched him turn away, and wished he could kiss him. He’d wanted to for a long time, but hadn’t, even when he’d been drunk enough to brush it off if Rhodey ever brought it up.
If he kissed him now, he could stay. But he was doing better at being better, and he didn’t want to kiss Rhodey just to make him stay for this moment. He wanted to kiss Rhodey and make him stay forever. So Tony did nothing, and watched as his best friend got back into the elevator.
He sighed, and dumped his glass down the drain.
Three
It was movie night with Tony and, honestly, Rhodey had almost considered not going.
He’d nearly kissed Tony on that mission, and now it was all he could think about. After a mission, when he got excited about whatever he was talking about even if it went right over his head, whenever he showed his secretly sweet side, like right now.
Tony had sent him a text asking him to get ice cream so they could make sundaes together, just like they had done in school together.
Rhodey had talked about missing his mom’s sundaes with homemade fudge sauce, and Tony had demanded they make it, and that was that. It became their thing, having sundaes together, even though they hadn’t done it in years. He was touched that Tony remembered, even if Tony would deny to his dying breath that he could be sentimental .
The ride up the elevator was quick, and as the doors opened to the penthouse he could hear Tony moving around in the kitchen. He was standing at the stove stirring a pot and humming, and Rhodey found himself grinning, just standing there, watching him. Tony had slowly been getting better, he now had more happier days than not, but it never failed to bring a smile to his face to see Tony being happy.
It was easy to make his way over to the fridge and drop a kiss on Tony’s cheek, but he aborted the motion at the last second, head right beside Tony’s.
“That smells good,” he said, like an idiot.
Once again, Tony proved that he was the master of ignoring awkward situations. “I figured if we’re going to do sundaes, we might as well do them right. I even scrounged up your mom’s recipe, so if it tastes like shit, don’t tell her. She’d drag me into the kitchen and never let me leave.” He gave an overexaggerated shudder and Rhodey found himself laughing; if Tony noticed it sounded a little strangled, he didn’t mention it.
“Yeah, my mama wouldn’t want you giving her recipe a bad name. You’d never hear the end of it.”
Tony pulled the wooden spoon out of the sauce and jabbed it in his direction, and Rhodey realized how close he was still standing. “You better not tell her, or so help me, James Platypus Rhodes, you will not be eating any of this chocolate and it will all be for me.”
Rhodey laughed as he moved to finally put the ice cream in the fridge. “How am I supposed to tell if it tastes like shit if I can’t even have any?”
“Hey! Watch the sass, mister, you’re forgetting whose house you’ve graciously been allowed to enter.”
Rhodey heaved a sigh of relief as he opened the freezer. Banter he could do.
Four
It had taken Tony a while to realize that he wasn’t alone in his lab. Friday hadn’t alerted him, so whoever it was must’ve been a familiar party, but still; he’d spun his chair around to grab a screwdriver that he absolutely did not need, only to relax when he realized that it was Rhodey standing by the door.
He was watching him. He did that a lot, Tony had realized. Watching him. Not that he minded. He wasn’t one for hypocrisy in this area.
He wondered why he did it. Tony knew why he did it, he wasn’t so out of touch with himself that he wouldn’t have recognized liking someone.
And he had liked Rhodey for a while. It was just a part of who he was. He was a genius, he was Iron Man, he liked Rhodey, he hated his father. These were all undeniable truths about him, and he’d been living with most of them for decades, at this point.
So, no, he didn’t really find it strange that Rhodey watched him. He wanted it to be because Rhodey, too, had feelings for him, but Tony knew better than to expect that; had had that assumption blow up in his face one too many times to be comfortable making it now.
Rhodey liked watching him, Tony didn’t know why, and that was all there was to it.
He did decide to finally address him, though. After all, who knew how long he had been standing there?
Feigning surprise at seeing him, Tony said, “hey, platypus, hope you haven’t been there long. What’s crackalackin’?”
“First of all, never say that ever again,” Rhodey said. “Secondly, crackalackin’? Really?”
“Hey, I’m trying to keep up with today’s youth. I’ve been learning some new words and I happen to think they’re quite–” he paused to throw a mocking grin at Rhodey, “--dope.” Rhodey groaned.
“I don’t know why you’re so salty, bae, I think it’s a big W for me, no cap.”
A surprised bark of laughter escaped his mouth, and he chuckled for a couple seconds before shaking his head with a smile. “I think you’re spending too much time on the internet. It’s a bad influence on you.”
Tony was going to answer, but his eyes locked on to Rhodey’s smile, and he couldn’t pull himself away. How had he never noticed how bright his smile was? How had he never noticed the small dimple by the left corner of his mouth. And his lips . They looked so soft, and he wondered how they’d feel against his own–.
“Tony?”
Shit. “Yeah, sorry, was thinking about the project I was working on. What’s up?” A quick glance at Rhodey’s face revealed that he only looked amused.
“I asked if you had any dinner plans tonight.”
“Oh, I’m having Pepper over for dinner.” He watched as Rhodey’s face fell and he tacked on, “But I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you were there too.”
“You sure Tony? I don’t want to intrude.”
Tony just smiled and moved towards the lab door. “Nonsense, honeybear. Don’t think that I don’t know about the gossip sessions, I know you guys are friends.” He switched off the lights and sauntered out into the hallway. “Maybe don’t tell him about our college days, though. I don’t need him going home with any ideas and having his scary aunt coming after me. Having her chew me out one was enough, thank you for much.”
Rhodey just laughed, and Tony ducked his head to hide his smile at the sound. “Sure thing, Tones, I can do that.”
Five
Rhodey and Tony were both drunk. Pissed. Absolutely smashed.
They hadn’t meant to get drunk, but it was the start of a three day weekend, and one drink led to two, two led to five, and suddenly they were giggling together on the couch like they were in college again.
“I can’t believe you did that!” Tony gasped out in between laughs. “I’m such a bad influence on you, oh my god.”
Rhodey was laughing too, and managed to choke out, “You can’t tell anyone, Tones, no one knows it was me,” before dissolving into giggles again.
“Do you have pictures? Please tell me you have pictures.”
“I do, but I think I’m too drunk to find them,” he admitted, leaning back on the couch again. “There are three of you right now, and I don’t know which one is real.”
“Well,” Tony hiccupped, “get over here and find out.”
Rhodey turned his head to the left, where Tony was sprawled on the couch.
He took a moment to admire him: Tony’s jawline, the small laugh lines around his mouth, then his mouth. It was all very interesting and he was rather enraptured, even if there were three of him. His eyes were drawn up to a few strands of Tony’s hair that had fallen out of place, and his hand raised of its own accord to brush them out of the way, but ended up slapping Tony in the face.
Still. He couldn’t stop looking at him. Tony was looking at him, too.
Rhodey glanced back down at his mouth again, and when he looked up he knew he didn’t look away fast enough, because now Tony was looking at him with a strange look on his face.
Then, Tony’s gaze dropped down to his lips, very slowly, and time stopped.
Rhodey might’ve been plastered, but he was pretty sure that Tony just looked at his mouth, and he was pretty sure that Tony saw him looking at his mouth, and now he was pretty sure that they were going to kiss.
Tony’s eyes once again fastened on his lips, and then Rhodey gave in to his desire, moved closer to finally, finally kiss the man he’d been in love with for twenty years.
His eyes slid shut as he leant closer, close enough that he could feel Tony’s breath brushing over his face, and the moment was there, and their lips were about to touch, and–Friday’s voice spoke up. “Food is here, Boss,” she said, and just like that, the moment was broken, Tony staggered his way off the couch and over to the elevator to get their food.
When he stumbled back over to the couch with their dinner, it’s like nothing ever happened.
Rhodey gave a quiet, bitter laugh, reaching for chopsticks he was uncertain he was capable of using in his inebriated state. Master of ignoring awkward situations indeed.
Plus One
It was supposed to be an easy mission, yet Rhodey couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d thought that. It’d been fine then, and it would be fine now, he hoped. A new terror group had supposedly gotten their hands on some kind of dangerous tech, but the base was tiny and run down.
Preliminary scans showed only a few heat signatures inside the buildings, and they’d split up against Rhodey’s wishes. Tony had made the argument that there were even less people here than there had been at the Hydra base, and everything turned out fine then, so Rhodey very reluctantly let him go to the other side of the building.
And it really was turning out to be an easier mission. Rhodey encountered less than ten combatants as he made his way through, all of whom were easily dealt with. Tony and him had kept up several rounds of easy banter as they fought off their assailants, who weren’t doing a very good job at assailing.
“Platypus, you can say it as many times as you want, but that doesn’t make it true,” Tony said as Rhodey fired his repulsor at another terrorist. “Blueberry pie is, and always will be, the superior pie. I don’t want to hear anymore about this banana cream bullshit, capiche ?”
Rhodey rolled his eyes, and the scoff that he heard from the other end of the comms told him Tony knew exactly what he was doing. “We’re allowed to have different tastes in pies, Tony.”
“Yeah, but it’s the principle of the matter,” he argued, and Rhodey heard repulsor blasts on his end. “I can’t in good conscience let my best friend believe that banana cream pie is the best pie that pie has to offer. Hell, I would even take rhubarb over banana cream, and that’s saying something.”
“Woah, woah, woah, you’ve gone too far now, Tony. Worse than rhubarb? Really?”
“Maybe not worse than rhubarb,” Tony admitted. “But it’s not much better, and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on.”
“Fine, have it your way,” Rhodey replied. “We’ll make blueberry pie this weekend.”
The resulting cheer from the end of the line was enough for him to be happy with the situation, even if he did have to pretend to like blueberry pie for a few days.
Blueberry pie, however, was soon pushed to the back of his mind as, with a squeal of tires, backup arrived and the amount of people coming at him picked up significantly. Banter fell away to the sound of repulsor beams and the rattle of gunfire on metal, because of course these attackers had to have good aim.
He hadn’t noticed Tony had stopped talking until the last terrorist lay dead.
“Tony? Tony? You there?”
Nothing. This wasn’t the first time comms had cut, and Rhodey doubted it would be the last, and he knew that worrying wouldn’t help the situation any. Yet, he found himself worried anyway, heart thumping painfully in his chest, breathing picking up as he scanned the area for someone he knew he wouldn’t see. Tony’s last known location was on the other side of the compound, a significant distance away from him, and he found himself pushing the suit to its limits despite the damage it had already taken. The repulsors were shaking from the effort, the suit screeching in awkward cracks and bends, but he was nearly there.
“Tony?” He called out. He had just taken another step forward when he stumbled. Tremors shook the building and Rhodey watched as dust dropped down from the ceiling; the concrete walls around him seemed to groan as cracks appeared on their surfaces.
“Tony!” Rhodey yelled. “Tony!”
There was no response.
He raced down the hallway and took the first right, doing his best to try to calm his breathing. As he got closer to Tony’s last known location, he could see more cracks in the concrete, and the air was cloudy with dust and debris.
He walked into the room and saw Tony, and felt the same wave of relief wash over him like last time. He was lying on the ground, but croaked out a weak, “hey, honeybear,” as Rhodey got closer. He was covered in a fine grey powder, and chunks of concrete were scattered on the ground around him.
“What happened?” Rhodey kneeled down next to his best friend and started frantically checking him over for any sign of injury. The suit looked like it had been put through a garbage disposal, with dozens of chinks in the armor ranging from scratched to deep gashes, and even parts where the outerlayer was pulled away completely and the inner circuitry was revealed.
“Oh, nothing much. Just got hit by a rocket launcher.” Tony tried for a nonchalant shrug, but he groaned when he tried to move his shoulders. “Yup, something’s definitely broken.”
“I’m calling for backup,” Rhodey said, quickly sending out a distress signal as he looked around. There was a suspicious lack of rocket launchers laying around. “Tony. What happened to the rocket launcher?”
“The guy got a cheap shot on me, but I got in a good hit before he left. Hopefully, he’s bleeding out somewhere, the asshole. That fucking hurt.”
Now that Rhodey was looking for it, he could see a small trail of blood leading out into what was presumably another hallway.
“You can go after him, I know you want to. My knight in shining armor.” The sarcasm fell flat. Rhodey hadn’t been there, hadn’t gotten there in time, hadn’t protected him from getting shot in the chest with a fucking rocket launcher . Couldn’t even tell him he loved him. But he could do this, could make the bastard that hurt Tony pay.
Rhodey reached down and gently lay his hand on Tony’s chest, right over the arc reactor. “I’ll be right back, okay? And help’s on the way.”
Tony opened his mouth to answer but broke out into coughs, thick, wet ones that hurt Rhodey to hear. He turned his head to the side as he got them out of his system, and Rhodey pretended not to see the blood he wiped away. Tony would be fine. He always was.
“I’ll be right back,” Rhodey promised, and, before he could think better of it, brushed his hand through Tony’s hair. “You won’t even know I’m gone.”
It wasn’t difficult to find the terrorist. The trail of blood was obvious, and so was the rocket launcher in the middle of the hallway. Rhodey took great pleasure in breaking it down to dust. The man himself was laying on the ground not far from it, clutching his hands to his stomach as he lay propped against the wall. Killing him was the easiest thing Rhodey had ever done.
“He’s dead, Tones,” he reported as he made his way back into the room. He was relieved to see Tony now sat propped up against a wall. “A repulsor blast to the head was too good for him.”
Rhodey kneeled down next to him and picked up his hand in his own. He gave it a squeeze, and smiled softly when he felt Tony squeeze back. “Rest now, and don’t worry, backup will be here in ten and we’ll get you back to the tower where you’ve got the best doctors on staff, and you’ll be just fine. With any luck you’ll be let off bedrest soon and we can make your atrocious blueberry pie.” Another squeeze confirmed Tony had heard him.
He looked down for the first time to study the damage the suit had taken, and frowned. That blast had not been kind to it. Where there weren’t bullet holes there were scorch marks and broken metal, and some of the plates had been blown off entirely, exposing the wiring underneath.
Down around the stomach area the metal looked slick, and with dawning horror Rhodey realized that it was blood. Shit, no wonder Tony couldn’t work up the energy to speak anymore, he was suffering from blood loss. He quickly found the emergency open switch hidden on Tony’s back and hit it. The metal ground together and Rhodey could hear the gears working over time as, slowly, the front of the suit opened up.
Dozens of pieces of shrapnel were embedded in chest, and it was clear the inside of the suit had taken just as much damage as the outside. There was red, so much red , pouring out of his chest and Rhodey knew that he was supposed to leave the shrapnel in, knew that Tony would bleed more if he took it out, but God, he had to be in so much pain.
Steeling himself, he put his hands over Tony’s chest and pushed hard. Tony wheezed above him and Rhodey winced in sympathy. Blood was trickling out between the metal fingers of the suit, but at a slower rate than before. He checked the time; five more minutes before backup would arrive and they could transfer Tony to someone qualified to put him back together.
A moment later and the blood flow had slowed down considerably. Rhodey knew from experience that it shouldn’t have stopped that fast, and, with an increasing feeling of dread, Rhodey got out of the suit. He raised his hand up to check Tony’s pulse and as he moved Tony’s head to the side, he saw it. There, sticking out of one of the opened panels, was a jagged spear of metal going right into Tony’s neck.
“No, no, no, no, no, no.” He put his hand to the other side of Tony’s neck and felt around frantically for a pulse, but nothing. “Tony, Tony, come on, please. Wake up, you have to wake up.”
He pressed their lips together, and wished so desperately that they’d both been alive to do this. “Tony, come back to me, please.”
Rhodey waited for a response, but he knew there would never be one again.
He pressed their foreheads together, shook him, kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, kissed lips that grew colder with every kiss, kissed lips that would never kiss back, kissed lips that tasted like blood, kissed Tony only when he had lost the very thing that made him Tony.
He kissed him like a dying man, but he wasn’t the one who was dead.