So, Iâve been pretty absent, since I was finishing up my Bachelor degree paper. Good news, my papers passed and after some revision, I can finally graduate, hopefully in a month or two. Also, I can finally continue the stories I have, and write new ones that have been haunting me all the time I had to focus on my paper.
Anyway, hereâs something I began to write, it might sneak into that IW story I had planned, or a new story entirely. I still have no idea where it will go, really. But I thought I can share anyway since I really like this. I wrote this after I watched the first season of â13 Reasons Whyâ, so it really was inspired by that.
âThis, again,â was the only thought Rhodey had when he returned to the Compound, after learning that he could never walk again, not without aid, and found the place empty but for Vision and Tony. Vision, who Rhodey knew without much doubt will leave too once he has a chance, once Maximoff made contact.
And then, there will only be Tony and Rhodey, Rhodey and Tony, again.
Tony didnât say much about what happened. Only that choices were made, sides were formed, and no one wins. But, there was something on his face, the familiar face that Rhodey knew as the expression of betrayal. Only, Tony didnât talk to him, havenât been since he backed off from the Avenger and War Machine got recruited. Rhodey, who never learned how to make Tony talk when he didnât want to, didnât push. Couldnât push.
Sometimes, Rhodey wished they were still that pair of bright-faced college kids with big dreams. He wished their world still consisted of exams and projects, experiments and reports. He wished all he had to do was ask a professor so he could figure out the problem he was stuck in if there was something he didnât understand.
There were so many things he didnât understand, especially after he and Tony focused on their respective careers, their respective lives. They were still best friends, but there was something like glass walls that was erected between them. Afghanistan made Rhodey realize of its existence, when Tony wouldnât talk to him about the weird device in his chest, about his captivity, and after Stane died. But, it was at that disastrous birthday bash that Rhodey acknowledged of that wallâs existence, hating it and raged at it. But, he didnât know how to destroy it, didnât know how it even exists in the first place.
But, they were still best friends. They were Tony and Rhodey, RhodeyandTony. Tony still loves him, and he still loves Tony. Those are facts. Those are the truth.
He knew this. Still, he was reminded of that wallâs existence again when he woke up after the fight at Leipzig. He saw Tonyâs face, worried for Rhodey. Hurting because of something that wasnât Rhodey. A betrayal that carved another wound in Tony that Rhodey couldnât know come from whom, because Tony wouldnât talk. Sure, he could guess. He could speculate. But, it wouldnât be the truth.
He thought it was because Steve wouldnât back down. That he had attacked Tony so fiercely, to keep his best friend out of the hands that have their own selfish agenda for the Winter Soldier. But, he couldnât hate Steve for that, not when he would do the same thing for Tony. So, he teased Tony instead, distracted him from the thoughts of the Rogers and those who followed him. He took an active part in the Accords Committee right by Tonyâs side.
In hindsight, he wasnât wrong. But, it wasnât the truth either.
âItâs all about perception,â Tony had once said back in their college days, half-drunk and leaning his head on Rhodeyâs shoulder, a can of beer each in their hands. It was a time when the walls between them were nonexistent, when Tony would speak to him about anything and everything.
âWords and photographs give people a scene to interpret, and more often than not, what they hear from the words, see from those photographs, despite how unmanipulated they were, arenât the truth. How people see an event, what others said about that event, they could change the story from their own perspective. The truth becomes distorted until it ceased to matter, because by then they have their own truth, and that was all that mattered in how they perceive their world,â Tonyâs words were no more than a whisper, but Rhodey could hear them loud and clear inside their silent dorm room, the sound of party music and laughter a far distant away, an echo carried by the wind. Around them, suggestive pictures of Tony, printed on cheap papers, spread and tattered on their floor, on their furniture, like a demented nest around them. Rhodey had been angry, trying to rip them, burn them, crumple them and threw them in the trash, but those assholes kept piling them up and blew them into their dorm room through the window, the vent, pushed them through the little slit on the door.
Same pictures have been spreading around their classes and dorm for three months now. Whispers, catcalls, jeers, and looks have followed Tony since the pictures first spread. Tony didnât seem affected before, he was the one that told Rhodey to let it go when the man wanted to punch Ty in the face, angry that he spread such things around. But, after months of being called a cheap whore, faggot, girls sneering at him and guys groping and squeezing his ass without care, because he was a guy, and gay, he mustâve liked it, tonight Tony broke.Â
Rhodey didnât know why it was that night. But, at the time, it didnât matter for Rhodey. Tony cried silent tears that didnât seem to fit with his loud personality. He was still, leaning on Rhodeyâs side, so still that Rhodey was afraid for him if he didnât feel the slight movement on his side that indicated Tony was still breathing. Tonyâs eyes that Rhodey was used to see lit with excitement, with mischief, that night they were blank.
âYou know, Rhodey?â Tony whispered again, âWe didnât even do anything at that time. We just kissed. We were kissing. He groped me a bit, but I stopped him when he tried to get under my clothes. He took pictures, said it was just for him, but then his friends saw it so he told them lies because he was too cowardly to admit he was gay. Now, Iâm the campus whore, even when nothing had happened.â
Rhodey had to hold himself back when people the rumors of Tony Stark's promiscuity kept escalating, even getting rudely and horrifyingly graphic. When one night Tony came back to their dorm room reeking of alcohol, cum stain on his clothes and blank eyes, saying, âNo one would ever believe otherwise, now. Might as well make it true, right?â Rhodey wanted to kill Ty. Kill him. Burn him. Rip him apart and bash him down with a fucking mallet.
One by one, friends Tony had managed to make Before Ty, friends Tony had cautiously made After Ty, they all stabbed him in the back, pushed and dragged him under the bus so they could keep pretending like they were better than Tony. Blamed him for things he didnât do so they could keep their hands clean as if it was his fault they were tainted by imperfection.
Until, when they graduated MIT, Rhodey was all that was left, loyal by his side. The only one Tony didnât look at with a dark veil in his eyes, the only one Tony would look at with warmth and spark amidst the crowd of faceless and greedy people, clutching and pawing at him with their slimy hands.
Rhodey would like to say that Ty was how it began, the beginning of Tonyâs spiral. The start of how the worst of Tony Stark came to be. But, he knew even then, it was simply another milestone, another reel of how shitty Life was for Tony Stark. How shitty humanity was when faced with Tony Stark.
Unfortunately, despite Iron Man, despite the Avengers, there didnât seem to be an End in sight.
And, again, Rhodey was all Tony has left.
