#eza writes

It happens for the first time just after Afghanistan. Tony is awake and has been for longer than he cares to count (JARVIS, the little bitch, is quick to remind him), buried in the workshop pulling together the fragments of an idea.

“Sir, Lieutenant Rhodes is on the phone.” JARVIS intones and Tony blinks owlishly around the workshop, waiting for the haze of numbers and formulas to settle.

“What? Oh, put him through.” He waves a distracted hand and pushes away from the workbench, rolling idly across the workshop on his stool.

“ T-Tony?” Rhodey’s voice echoes around the workshop, and he sounds wrong.

“ Sugarbear, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? Please don’t tell me you’re in some military hospital somewhere being poked by second rate medical monkeys.” Tony knows his tone is all wrong; too sharp by far, but his heart is pounding so hard he swears he can feel it hitting the arc reactor casing.

“ Where are you?” Rhodey doesn’t sound like he even heard the off colour joke, and if that isn’t an indicator, Tony isn’t a billionaire.

“Honeyblossom, puddin’ pop, where I always am! Working away in my little ca- uh, house of wonders! I’m more concerned about where you are?”

“M’apartment? I was dreaming. You were gone and I couldn’t find you and I just wanted to. I just wanted to call.” Rhodey’s voice steadies a little, but he still sounds sad and shocky and wrong. Tony can’t remember ever having heard Rhodey sound like this and it’s both extremely gratifying and utterly terrifying. Tony would never like to repeat this experience, thank you.

“Well hey!” He says, falsely bright. “Why don’t you help me out with an issue I’ve been having with the Roadster’s engine. I had this idea, see...”

There’s a shuffling on the other end of the phone, what Tony assumes is Rhodey settling back into bed, but Tony doesn’t pause in his rambling.

It takes about an hour, but eventually the only sound from the phone is quiet snoring, and Tony hangs up with a smile.

~x~

After the Palladium incident, Tony takes to wearing v neck or unbuttoned shirts whenever Rhodey’s around and they both try to ignore the way Rhodey’s eyes seem continually drawn to the reactor. Once, Rhodey even traces a hand from Tony’s neck downwards, following the skin that once wore the marks of Palladium poisoning.

“ Please, Tony.” Rhodey whispers and his eyes are wet. Tony pretends not to know what he’s asking for, but they both know.

He wants to promise he won’t leave Rhodey behind, won’t go somewhere his best friend can’t follow.

He knows it for the lie it is, though.

~x~

After New York, Rhodey calls him every night for a week. The first time he tells Tony in hitching gasps about seeing the Iron Man armour disappearing into a hole in the sky; after that sends Tony very promptly into a panic attack, they don’t talk about it.

They just talk to each other, clinging to the soft sounds of life through a phone line.

~x~

Rhodey gets the phone call to say Tony’s been killed in a terrorist attack, though Tony doesn’t find out until later. He’s drifting aimlessly around the penthouse of Avengers Tower, trying not to remember the expression on Maya’s face right before she died, or the way Pepper screamed as she fell. They’re on a ‘break’, now, and Tony can’t blame her.

He’s a piping hot mess, he knows he is, but everything is so fucked up now he wouldn’t even know where to start fixing it.

The elevator door slides open behind him and Rhodey strides in, looking pale and tense. Tony blinks and opens his mouth to say something pithy, but the words die unspoken as Rhodey crashes into him. Tony stands for a moment in stunned surprise as Rhodey presses his face into the side of Tony’s neck, hard arms wrapped tightly around Tony’s waist. His shirt pulls uncomfortably at the back, where Rhodey has it twisted up in a desperate grip.

“Hey, Sugarplum, the bed in your apartment not cutting it? I can sympathise.” He tries, treading carefully because Rhodey looks like he’s about to lose it and Tony doesn’t know what to do. He kind of wants to panic, but then he figures: what would Rhodey do if it was Tony?

At a loss, Tony slides his arms around Rhodey’s back and clutches just as hard. Rhodey’s grip loses a little of it’s desperation, turns a little less into clinging and a little more like an embrace. Tony shuffles them gently over to the couch, but Rhodey fights him when he tries to get them sitting. Instead Rhodey sits and yanks at Tony until he’s practically in Rhodey’s lap. On his best day Tony wouldn’t deny this position hasn’t featured in some of his very, very, very private fantasies, but that doesn’t seem to be the mood Rhodey’s going for…

Rhodey shifts a little and rests his head against Tony’s chest just to the side of the reactor, arms now loosely wrapped around Tony’s waist, and he gets it.

“I just, I need a minute Tones, I’m sorry. I can’t sleep.”

Tony thinks of telling Pepper he couldn’t sleep for fear of not being able to protect the most important person in his life, and wonders.

~x~

After Ultron, Tony is...Fragile, in a way he can barely admit to himself, let alone anyone else. It’s like Afghanistan all over again, only this time he can’t fix it. He nearly destroyed the world, killed countless people, again. He finds himself pacing around the tower, stepping around broken glass and the remnants of everything.

He’s alone, again, and he doesn’t know why he’s surprised; isn’t this always how his life turns out?

He doesn’t even notice when Rhodey arrives, at first. He’s too busy staring at the broken lines of code that was JARVIS. Now it’s just the echoes left behind, after Ultron’s attack and Vision’s creation. His, well his son is gone and it’s Tony’s fault. He remembers reading, somewhere, that no parent should have to outlive their child.

But Tony’s not just outliving JARVIS, he killed him.

“Tones,” The voice is soft enough it somehow doesn’t startle him, his subconscious registering Rhodey’s presence without him realising it. Tony doesn’t turn but he angles his head a little, an acknowledgement that he knows Rhodey’s there.

Seconds later and arms slide around him, warm and familiar. He’s tugged backwards against Rhodey’s chest, warm flesh and a steady heartbeat to anchor himself to. Rhodey chafes his arms gently, his hands big and so warm, a bony chin coming to rest on Tony’s shoulder.

For the first time in his life, Tony finds he has nothing to say.

~x~

Standing in a hospital waiting room, Tony can’t help but feel bitterly resigned to the fact that somewhere, someone is laughing at his expense. At this point, he figures he has to believe in a higher power, because how else could everything he do so consistently turn to shit. The Avengers have fallen apart, with over half of them arrested, two missing and the remainder not talking to him. But that’s not the worst, because of course it isn’t. The worst is Rhodey, who’d clung to his hand and stared up at him with eyes blown wide in fear.

Who’d whispered ‘Tony, I can’t feel my legs’ as hospital staff surrounded the gurney and started tugging him away.

God, Rhodey couldn’t feel his legs. Tony’s struck by the simultaneous urge to scream and cry; fucking Steve Rogers and his righteous crusade.

“Mr Stark?” Tony turns immediately to face a smiling nurse, standing poised in the doorway. “He’s asking for you.”

He almost trips in his hurry to cross the waiting room, but the nurse only smiles sympathetically and turns back down the hallway. It seems an interminably long walk, with Tony just barely keeping the pile of questions stoppered behind his teeth. Eventually, he’s shown into a hospital room, the huge window looking out onto a small garden. He barely gives the view a glance, his attention immediately arrested by Rhodey.

Rhodey, lying flat in the bed and paler than Tony has ever seen him. Tony crosses the room and sits on the edge, leaning down. Almost simultaneously they embrace, clinging tight to one another. Rhodey presses his face into the space between Tony’s shoulder and neck, and through their embrace Tony can feel the way Rhodey trembles.

“Spinal injury; they said I’m paralyzed, Tony.” Rhodey murmurs, just loud enough for Tony to hear. The words take a moment to sink in and when they do it feels like Tony’s world cracks in half.

His Rhodey is paralyzed.

“Oh God,” Tony whispers, before he can bite the words back. Rhodey nods against his neck and Tony pretends he can’t feel the wetness against his skin. “We’ll fix it, boo-bear.”

“You can’t build your way out of this, Tones.” The words are harsh and grating; Tony expects Rhodey to be angry, to hate him. But there’s no accusation in Rhodey’s voice, just a quiet kind of despair that breaks Tony’s heart. “I’m useless, now.”

“ Watch me. ” Tony whispers fiercely. “Rhodey, I don’t care if you can’t walk, you are not useless. Ever. I’ll always need you, but if you need it, then I will fix this, do you understand me?” Tony leans upright to put some distance between them and forces their eyes to meet. Rhodey’s are wet with the threat of tears, but Tony couldn’t care less. “I’ll build you a whole new fucking spine if I have to, you got me?”

Rhodey laughs wetly, tips his forehead against Tony’s. “Yeah, man, I get you.”

They curl together in Rhodey’s hospital bed, huddling for comfort like they haven’t since they were in college. Rhodey is warm against Tony’s side and pressed this close, Tony can feel the reassuring beat of his heart.

“Any word on Cap and Barnes?” Rhodey asks after a short silence. Tony hums quietly and drums his fingers against the place the reactor used to sit.

“Not as such, no. I think they might have been telling the truth about the UN bombing, though. Looks like Barnes was set up.”

“You goin’ after them?” Rhodey lifts his head and turns a little to catch Tony’s eye. Tony chews his lip in silence for a moment, and then shakes his head.

“No, I’m not leaving you.” He decides, eventually. “Someone else can deal with the mess, for once.”

Rhodey doesn’t say anything for some time, staring at Tony in silence long enough for Tony to start fidgeting. “You should go. He’s your friend, too.”

“Rhodey, you-”

“I’m fine.” Rhodey interrupts firmly and Tony knows the stubborn glint in his eye. “I hate this, and I hate I can’t go with you to watch your back, but it’s the world, man.”

“It’s always the world,” Tony huffs bitterly. “You’d think it would stay saved for five minutes.” He pushes slowly, reluctantly to his feet and hates everything about his life in that moment. Rhodey nods at him and flashes a wobbly smile, though it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Tony, wait!” Rhodey calls just as Tony reaches the door. Tony stops and turns to the sight of Rhodey reaching a desperate hand in his direction. He crosses back to Rhodey immediately, catching his hand and squeezing it warmly. “I’ll be honest, I’ve got a real bad feelin’ about all this, and it feels like every time I’m not lookin’ you’re almost dyin’. So, I’m gonna say it because I feel like I’m gonna lose my chance.”

“Honeypie, you’re not making a whole lot of sense, here. Say what?”

Rhodey tugs on his hand, and keeps tugging until Tony leans down to meet him. The other hand comes up behind Tony’s neck, and a moment later they’re...They’re kissing.

Tony’s brain screeches to a very abrupt halt and then starts racing. Rhodey is kissing him.

Rhodey is kissing him.

Rhodey’s lips are warm and soft, coaxing a response rather than demanding one. Tony groans lowly in the back of his throat and presses into the contact, his free hand cupping over Rhodey’s shoulder. The kiss seems to go on forever and at the same time, it’s over too quickly. They spend a few precious seconds hovering close, breath warm in the scant space between them.

“When you get back, we’re gonna talk about this.” Rhodey states.

“Uh huh.” Tony mumbles, only half paying attention to the words.

“Go save Captain America, hero.” Rhodey’s smiling, now; the first real smile Tony’s seen yet.

Tony goes, reluctantly.

Later, lying alone in a Siberian bunker, he’ll wish he’d paid more attention to Rhodey’s ‘bad feeling’. He’ll think of that moment in a well lit hospital room, with Rhodey’s lips on his, and wish he’d stayed.

~x~

Floating through space in a crumbling spaceship isn’t really how Tony pictured himself going, but considering the number of near death experiences he’s managed to acquire in the past few years…

Well, he supposes it isn’t the worst way to go. Nebula hasn’t given up; she’s still desperately trying to patch up the ship, but it feels like for everything they fix, something else breaks. Tony wants to help, but everything feels a little fuzzy. He knows it’s the dehydration and the starvation combined, knows it’s slowing his thoughts. He can’t remember the last time he slept.

He misses Rhodey.

He wonders if Rhodey’s even still alive; half the universe is gone, now, thanks to Thanos. Statistically, the odds that Rhodey’s alive aren’t...Well, they aren’t great.

He stares blankly at the Iron Man helmet in his hands. The eye slits are glowing a faint blue. He thinks he might have been recording a final message.

He doesn’t remember what he was saying.

“‘M tired, Rhodey.” He mumbles, blinking sluggishly. “Jus’ wanna rest.”

He blinks again, and realises he’s staring at the roof of the ship. When did he lie down? He doesn’t remember doing that, but now that he’s stretched out, it feels so nice. Maybe he could just take a little nap, and when he woke up he could help Nebula.

The ship feels like it’s rocking and the motion is oddly soothing. Tony’s eyes slip slowly closed, his brain distantly registering the tortured shriek of metal without worrying over the significance.

He drifts, for a while; floating in a haze, feeling nothing but the cool metal beneath him. The hunger and thirst fades to the back of his mind. The next thing he becomes aware of is blazing warmth on either side of his face. Tony’s eyes snap open and he finds himself staring up at Rhodey.

He knows the smile that stretches across his face probably looks ridiculous. “‘M hallucinating.” He tells dream Rhodey, who frowns down at him. “Glad s’you.”

Rhodey’s eyes are bright and it takes Tony’s sluggish brain far too long to realise they’re wet with tears. Even then, he only realises because one drops on his face. The splash of wet to his cheek jolts him, and Tony belatedly realises Rhodey is here.

“I got ya, Tones. I got ya.” Rhodey is whispering as he hauls Tony upright. Tony presses into the contact, finds himself folded into a familiar embrace. The lips that press urgently against his own isn’t as familiar, but it’s so welcome. “God, I love you.” Rhodey near sobs and Tony clings with what little strength he has.