#protective pepper

When Pepper comes in, ten minutes after seven, she clings to a bottle of wine as if she instinctively knew she would need alcohol for this conversation. Tony studies her closely, almost involuntarily on guard. She knew about the USB drive. She is involved in everything at Stark Industries, has the highest security clearance, and is probably better at signing Tony’s name than he is himself. He has to see her reaction, has to be as sure as he can be – without outright accusing her of anything – that she had nothing to do with selling him out.

Tony does not believe Pepper would betray him, but he has trusted the wrong people before.

Once Pepper sees him, her eyes widen and her mouth opens for a gasp. Only years of training help her keep her composure enough to not let the bottle fall. Tony sees her hand twitch nonetheless.

Air floods into his lungs as he sighs in relief. There is no way of being certain, but Pepper looks like she is feeling every visible bruise of his herself. The worry in her eyes is not faked, and neither is the fury rising in them only moments later. He cannot afford to distrust her beyond that.

“What happened?” she asks with more venom than Rhodey had but with as much conviction to do something about it.

“We have a mole,” Tony says simply.

He has hoped that would draw her attention, to keep both her and Rhodey from focusing on the blaringly obvious wreck that is his face. He needs them to make sense of this for him.

Pepper opens her mouth and Tony is almost ready for the barrage of questions, but then she closes it again. With determined steps, she walks to the couch, sets the bottle down on the glass table heard enough that Tony half expects it to leave a crack, then sits down beside him and takes his face into her hands.

She turns his face to the light, studies the motley pattern of bruises and swelling. Gentler than her expression promises, she lifts the lid of his left eye to get a better look at it underneath the bruise.

Her gaze is burning in its intensity when she lets her hands drop. “What happened?” she then asks again in that tone of voice that regularly has the board of directors cowering before her.

She looks at Rhodey, who is sitting opposite them, arms spread out over the back of the couch, even though that does not hide the tension in his body. It will be easier to get answers from him than from Tony himself – which is part of the reason Tony has not told Rhodey anything substantial yet, insisting to wait until Pepper’s arrival. Going through it once will be hard enough, and he needs to keep this under his control as much as he can.

“Tony got himself kidnapped,” Rhodey says, aiming for a dry tone but is unable to hide the angry tremor in his voice.

Ever since Rhodey arrived half an hour earlier, he has been glaring, looking Tony over for every twinge of pain he is not sharing, and demanding answers. It has been near impossible to keep him from storming off to look for the people who did this to Tony.

“By whom?” Pepper asks, voice icy. It is a tone that is impossible to ignore.  

Rhodey shrugs. The motions is distinctly dangerous. “He doesn’t want to tell.”

“Then you must not have asked often enough.”

They are in their own little world right now, intent on solving another problem labelled Tony. When Tony first introduced them, he had been anxious whether they would get along, these two most important people in his life. These days, they team up against him far too often for comfort.

“I was getting there,” Rhodey says, and his impatience is not directed at Pepper. “You know how he is.”

“He is right here.” Tony should have kept his mouth shut, because as soon as the words are out, both his friends’ attention is on him. They are wearing twin-unamused expressions of impatient concern. It is nice to have them looking out for him, but right now, he needs them to concentrate on the bigger picture.

“Why?” Pepper demands. One word is enough to convey she will not let this go, not until Tony has given her a satisfactory answer.

Tony stares at the bottle Pepper brought, at his own glass on the table, still containing about an inch of whiskey. He could reach for any of those, offer his friends a drink, stall for time. If he does not stark talking now, though, he might just never manage to.

“They wanted information about my personal projects. My USB drive?” Again, Tony looks closely at Pepper, gauging her reaction. When she nods, impatiently but without guilt, he continues. “Someone hired them to get it for them.”

Steve and his gang have not yet tried to open the files on it – JARVIS would have gotten a signal and alerted him. Tony is afraid that means they will not look at it at all. Almost a whole day has passed since they got the drive. If only they put it in a computer, Tony would know where they are, JARVIS could integrate himself into their system without them ever being the wiser.

It is also entirely possible, that they are going to hand it over to the buyer without ever touching it themselves at all. From a strategic point of view, that would be the better way, since it would lead Tony straight to the person who sold them out.

He wants that connection to Steve, though. He tells himself that is only because he wants to keep an eye on them, to make sure he will know beforehand if they come after him again. There is no denying the sheer demand in the throbbing of the soul bond, though. Perhaps Tony is just too weak to try.

“And you couldn’t just hand it over,” Rhodey says with the kind of accusation that was borne from years of trying to keep Tony safe from himself, “so they beat you up over it.”

The easiest thing would be to say yes. Tony hesitates too long for it to still be believable, though. Immediately, Pepper narrows her eyes at him.

“They took it first thing. That wasn’t the issue.” Tony grimaces, remembering how he thought the kidnapping was the most civil one he ever had. Thoughts like this just have to be punished. “It’s just that they have a personal grudge against –” He shrugs, swallows against the tightness of his throat. “Well, it’s complicated.”

This was a bad idea. He should have done what he always does and hidden away in the workshop until the bruises are faded and took care of this himself. It would have been much easier to not say anything than to fumble through an explanation, especially since he knows he will not be able to satisfy his friends. They will look right through him, and then all the things he wants to keep secret will come out anyway.

For once, he wanted to do the responsible thing and get help, if only because it will be easier like this to deal with the lost weapons. It was stupid to believe they could keep the personal part of the problem out of it.

“You’re obviously deflecting so we don’t have the whole story, but I don’t see what could be complicated about this,” Pepper says, steel in her voice. She shifts her position so she sits farther away from him to make her glare more effective. “Someone kidnapped you, stole your private data, and beat you up. Have you already informed the police?”

“No,” Tony exclaims hastily, the same kneejerk reaction he gave JARVIS. “And we’re not going to.”

Thoroughly unimpressed glances bear into him from both Rhodey and Pepper. Tony feels like withering under it. The disapproval of one of them is hard to shoulder. Both of them at the same time leave him no room to wiggle free.

“Pray tell,” Pepper drawls, ferocious in her worry, “why are we not doing that?”

Tony takes a deep breath and ignores the pain in his ribs. “Because,” he says slowly, silently begging them to listen, “we have bigger problems.”

They do not listen.

“Bigger than someone beating you up?” Pepper asks, staring at the visible bruises before her eyes wander down, attempting to look through his clothes to see the rest of the damage. “Have you been to the hospital?”

Not once in his life has Tony gone willingly to a hospital. They all know that. “JARVIS checked me,” Tony says, making a show of shrugging as if the motion does not hurt. “I’m all right.”

Not taking her eyes off him, Pepper says, “JARVIS?”

The AI answers before Tony can protest. He has probably waited for his cue. “Sir has several broken ribs, a mild concussion –”

Rhodey sits up abruptly, his tension growing tenfold. “You told me you don’t have a concussion,” he calls, cutting JARVIS off. “You’ve been running around all day. You should rest. No screens, no excitement.”

Tony knows how to deal with a concussion. He also knows how to ignore the symptoms. So what if his head starts hurting easier than usual? So what if his vision swims? That is what painkillers and speech output systems are for.

“I’ve slept,” Tony says with all the petulance of someone tired of getting reprimanded for the way he takes care of himself.

“Sir has indeed had a nap for one hour and twenty-seven minutes,” JARVIS speaks up. His tone is too pleased to hide that he let Tony look bad on purpose. They really have to talk about what that whole Protect Anthony E. Stark thing means again.

“That’s like a whole night’s sleep for me,” Tony adds, although there is no saving this blunder.

“We’re not in the mood for jokes,” Rhodey snaps, glaring but not surprised. “JARVIS, get me everything you know about this. Where Tony was kidnapped, who was in the vicinity when it happened, where he turned up again. We’re going to find these bastards.”

Before JARVIS can make things worse by volunteering all his data on the Avengers, Tony says, “We don’t. You don’t.” There is enough authority in his tone that Rhodey, begrudgingly, turns to him, not insisting on his order. “Look, I’ll handle them,” Tony continues, sounding weary. He has to fight the urge to scratch his itching arm. “I didn’t call you here for that.”

With carefully constructed calm, Rhodey asks, “What could be more important than that?”

He shares a look with Pepper, and Tony knows they will not be getting anywhere if he lets them continue this line of questioning. His bruises will fade. He will not do anything about Steve and his gang for now as long as they leave him alone. He will not advertise the fact that he has found his soulmate.

“We have a mole,” Tony repeats his earlier words as firmly as he can manage.

“What does that even mean?” Pepper asks in a high voice, looking ready to throw her hands in the air to show her frustration at how little sense he is making. “We’re not a spy organization, we’re a normal company. Is someone doing inside dealing?”

Now they are getting somewhere, although Pepper does not sound half as concerned about that as she should be.

“Someone’s selling my weapons under the table,” Tony says into the expectant silence. The words weigh heavy on his tongue. “To the enemy. To terrorists. To anyone willing to buy. They turn up where they shouldn’t be and people die.” He exhales slowly, watching his friends’ faces for the same urgent need to fix this as he feels. “Someone’s doing that and we need to find them.”

The first thing Tony notices is the doubt. It might be the way he looks or the fact that they now know he has a concussion or simply that he has just returned home after having been kidnapped. It is not that they do not believe him, but they obviously think there are more important things to deal with.

It makes Tony irrationally angry with them. He is tired and in pain and constantly battling a stream of emotions from the soul bond that he did not ask for. All he wants is for his friends to believe him so that they can do something against this. He does not need to be kept safe right now, he needs to fight.

“How do you know that?” Pepper asks, looking like she has ten arguments ready why this cannot be true.

She does know more about Stark Industries’ inner workings, that is why Tony needs her help. Her constant scepticism, on the other hand, is mostly a hindrance right now. Of course, Tony wants this to be false information. If they go digging and do not find anything, he will be more than happy with that. The do need to look, though.

“The guys who took me told me,” Tony replies. He knows how that sounds. Telling them that the gang leader is his soulmate will not make them trust his word any more – and push them even farther off topic.

“Of course,” Rhodey snaps. He sounds decidedly done with this. “Because kidnappers are a reliable source of information.”

“The leader said –” Tony tries to argue, but does not get any farther.

“Before or after he beat you into a pulp?”

Tension fills the air like static, crackling, ready to detonate at the tiniest spark. Rhodey is trembling with a mixture of anger and worry and the need to find this gang to teach them to never touch Tony again. Tony has seen all of that on his face before, several times even over their friendship. Pepper, too, looks ready to snap. She is pale but her posture is flawless, her back straight to the point where it looks ready to break.

All of that because of Tony, because of some bruises, because someone always has it out for him. A part of him wishes he could give in to them, could allow them to wrap him up in a blanket and hide him away until the world is safe for him. He could give them Steve’s name and watch from afar while they take care of it. No matter how good the Avengers are, they are no match for Colonel Rhodes and Virginia Potts on a mission.

It would feel good even. Probably. He would not have to worry anymore about what to do with Steve, with this bond he does not want. At the same time, though, it would be cheap, heaping the responsibility for this on his friends. He does not want to drag them into another personal drama of his.

“Listen,” Tony says. It should not be this hard to keep his voice calm. “I don’t like this situation either. You’re right. Anyone could have ordered that hit and the information could be false, but now that I have it, I can’t not act on it.”

Tony feels breathless, more so when he sees that Rhodey and Pepper are still hesitating. With a desperation that he hopes does not show, he reaches for his glass and drains it in one go. Feeling restless, he jumps to his feet and walks over to the liquor cabinet where he remains standing, his back to his friends. That gives him the chance to collect himself, although he feels their stares on him, hears their silent conversation.

“I believe that you believe this,” Pepper says slowly, cautiously as if anything could soften the blow of them questioning him still when they could already be acting, “but you hit your head –”

“Yes,” Tony whirls around, alit with frustration, “I hit my head. Repeatedly. Against two guys’ feet. Because they have been out there fighting against terrorists with my weapons.” He forces himself to make a pause, to calm himself. “I don’t like them, and I don’t trust them, but I believe them when they say that someone’s putting my weapons where they don’t belong, and that someone told them that was my doing.”

At least that gets their attention in a not completely doubtful way.

“When did they have time telling you that?” Rhodey asks, still hung up on Tony’s wounds,

Tony closes his eyes, briefly. He remembers the shift on Steve’s face from disgusted to incredulous to concerned, remembers his own dislike decreasing paradoxically every time they looked at each other afterwards, with every touch they shared that did not hurt.

“The leader made sure I did not actually die, because that’s apparently not something they’re doing,” Tony says, his tone as neutral as he can manage. “We had a little chat. He didn’t want me thinking they weren’t justified in what they did.”

Bitterness coats his tongue, but he swallows it. This is not the time to think about Steve.  

“And now you’re all chummy?” Rhodey raises his eyebrows, staring at Tony in the way that makes it clear he knows Tony is hiding something. “He believes you didn’t do it, and you believe they’re not coming after you again?”

Put like that, it really does not make sense. Tony cannot explain it to them, though, cannot open himself up to that misery. “They are passionate enough about this to look for proof before they do anything further.”

“How did you get out?”

Everything in Tony wants to turn around, grab a bottle, and just vanish. Perhaps it was naïve of him to think this would be easier, that they would not ask questions. He keeps his eyes steadily on Rhodey, not even blinking.

“That sounds suspiciously like you’re thinking I’m working with them,” he says, harsher than intended. It does not bring him any satisfaction when Rhodey winces. “This wasn’t my first kidnapping. They beat me up and threw me out. Their job was the USB drive. The punching was just a little extra.”

Where Rhodey looks ready to back down, Pepper is not yet done. “Why won’t you let the police deal with them?” she asks, easily sprinkling more salt into his wounds.

“Because they’re looking into the weapon deals from their end.” That answer will not satisfy her. It would not satisfy him if their roles were reversed, but he is done with this. “Now, could you please stop the interrogation? I asked you here to help. You’re not helping.”

To give them credit, they look ashamed. That does not mean they are giving up or that they are done worrying about him, but perhaps they can finally get to the business at hand.

“We – I’m sorry, Tony,” Pepper says. “We want to help.”

She pats the couch next to her to get him to come back, to sit down. Both of them must see the way Tony is leaning against the cabinet to take some of the weight of his legs. The nap earlier had helped but he still feels the aftershocks of the kidnapping in every movement. Stubbornly, Tony remains where he is.

“Good,” he says with the kind of authority he seldom uses on them. “Then let me handle the kidnappers and concentrate on finding out who’s selling my weapons.”

Pepper nods, although it looks like she is biting her cheek to keep herself from saying something.

Leaning forward, Rhodey studies Tony. “Are you really all right?”

A smile spreads on Tony’s lips, holding no humour, tugging at the bruises. “Of course not,” he replies dryly. “But I will be. I always am.”

Rhodey and Pepper share a look and are not even subtle about it. There is no mistaking their worry, and Tony knows he can trust them. He just needs them to trust him on this too. This is not the time to rest. He can do that afterwards, when this matter is dealt with. And he will get there much faster with their help.

“Of course we’re going to help,” Rhodey says. For a moment, Tony is afraid he has said all of his thoughts out loud. His head is hurting and the concussion might be more noticeable than he told them. “What do you need us to do?”

Tony exhales in relief. This is not over. By showing them that he is hurt, he has doomed himself to constant questions about his well-being, but he could not delay this any longer nor is this a topic that could be talked about on the phone.

“There has to be evidence. A paper trail, communication.” Tony trails off, thinking.

If his weapons are truly spread through the wrong hands, there are a thousand possible perpetrators. It could be someone at Stark Industries, although it would have to be someone high-ranked enough to tamper with the books without it being too obvious. Otherwise, the profits would hardly be worth the risks.

It could also be one of the buyers, which really only leaves someone in the military, and that is a hornet’s nest he does not want to poke unprepared.

The people who could have reasonably ordered the hit on Tony are even more numerous. Business opponents, women he has spurned, fired contractors, former employees. If Tony is good at something, it is at making enemies.

Stark Industries is the sensible place to start. That is where the most damage can be done, both to their future business opportunities and to himself. It is also a matter of pride.

“Pep, I need you to dig into accounting to look for irregularities. I’ve had JARVIS going through anything he can without uploading him to SI’s servers.” Pointing at his face, Tony adds, "I can’t go in to work looking like I do, but I’ll give you something to make it easier to get to the sensitive data. It’s a –” Tony interrupts himself. Pepper does not need to know about the technicalities, the algorithm. She just needs to put the USB drive into a computer at Stark Industries. “It’ll help me get in.”

He waits for her nod, then turns to Rhodey “You’re my ears within the military. We need to know where my weapons wind up. Maybe someone’s just selling them on. I don’t –”

Tony shrugs. A thousand different starting points and possible solutions race through his head, but he does not know which step to take first. He is so tired but there is no rest in sight.

“We’ll take care of it,” Pepper says, as resolute as he had hoped for her to be from the very beginning. Once she sees Tony bearing up to protests, she amends, “We’ll take care of our end.”

Rhodey nods his head in affirmation. “Show us what you’ve got already.”

This time, when Pepper beckons him back to the couch, he goes to her, glad to sink back into the cushions. Nothing is solved yet, nothing makes sense, but with his two friends at his side, he has come so much closer to it already.

For the rest of the night, they strategize, speculate, and if they try to send him off to bed several times or to keep him from looking at a screen to long, Tony can live with that. It is good, even, to let them take some of the control.

They never get around to drinking that bottle of wine after all.

 ---

Pepper leaves at some point, citing the need to get some sleep if she is to go to Stark Industries in the morning without raising suspicion. She has a reputation to uphold of being constantly perfect, unflappable. Pepper Potts is never too tired or too distracted to do her job and to do it well.

Rhodey stays, though. It will be only for one night and that is too much of an unauthorized leave already, but Tony does not have it in him to send his best friend away tonight. He is in need of comfort, even if he does not outright say it. Rhodey understands him well enough without words, and he does not need to know the exact reason.

They stay on the couch, cuddled up together like they have done a thousand times before. Tony does not say anything when Rhodey pushes the wine bottle out of his reach. The one glass of whiskey he had sits heavily inside his stomach already. Getting drunk might have been his universal response to any problem at one point, but his head feels messed up already without adding alcohol into the mix. If Rhodey thinks that means Tony is slowly learning something like common sense, Tony does not correct him.

Tony pulls a blanket up around them as he settles more comfortably against Rhodey, using Rhodey’s breathing as a template for his own. He is calmer now, having lifted a huge part of the weight off his chest. His arm is itching, but he has taken care all evening to not reach for it to not tip off his friends about it.

He knows that Rhodey has not yet met his soulmate, and he supposes Pepper has not either, although they have never specifically talked about it. If not for the complicated mess surrounding the whole matter, Tony would have told them. He would have never even hesitated. They are family, the people he trusts most in the world.

“Are you all right?” Rhodey asks, disrupting the comfortable silence with more concern.

“Asked and answered, platypus,” Tony replies briskly, closing his eyes as if Rhodey would believe him if he pretended to fall asleep. “It’s time to move on.”

A silent chuckle reverberates through Rhodey’s body. “That was several hours ago,” he argues, “when we had a problem to solve.”

Tony’s answer to that will never change. He is fine, and if he is not he will act like it until the situation has either blown over or he has fixed things. With this, of course, only one of these is an actual option.

“We haven’t solved anything,” Tony says, attempting to change the topic, no matter that he would prefer to not talk anymore at all.

“I know. But we’re getting there,” Rhodey says, sounding like he is rolling his eyes, but Tony is too tired to lift his head and look. “So, how are you really doing?”

Of course, Rhodey would not let himself be distracted this easily. Tony is silent for a long moment, burrowing his face closer into Rhodey’s warmth. He is not going to lie, Rhodey would see through him anyway. The question is just how much of the truth he is going to offer.  

“I’m tired and in pain and not as angry as I should be,” he finally says, quiet and disheartened, perhaps too honest.

Rhodey raises his arm and puts it around Tony to hold him closer. Inside his own mind, Tony can admit that he missed this, intimacy without any demands. There is no price to pay for Rhodey’s closeness other than opening himself up enough to accept it.

“You’ll get there,” Rhodey says, not a trace of doubt in his voice. “I’ll give you until tomorrow morning to snap out of feeling betrayed right into doing something about it.”

Part of Tony fears that moment. He can never be sure he will make the right decisions.

“I thought we were already doing something,” he answers somewhat flippant, then softens. “But I hope you’re right. It feels wrong to be so passive about this.”

“As long as I’ve known you, you’ve never been passive,” Rhodey says, clicking his tongue. “Sometimes, your brain is pulling you into too many directions at once, but I’ve never seen you pass by a problem or a wrong without doing something about it.”

It is nice to have someone believing in him, even though Tony obviously does not deserve that kind of trust. If he did, he would not have been so blind, he would not have a soulmate who hates what he is, what he stands for

“So that is how my weapons are ending up in terrorists’ hands. Because I always fix what’s wrong.” Tony’s voice is sharp, but he only cuts himself with it. He has practice doing that.

Rhodey sits up a bit straighter, looking down at Tony even when Tony avoids his eyes. “You didn’t know,” he intones firmly, leaving no room for discussion. “And now that you do, you are immediately acting to make up for it.”

Glancing up, Tony is overwhelmed by the sheer conviction in his best friend’s eyes. “I should have known,” he says nonetheless, not allowing his guilt to be taken from him so easily.

“No sense in dwelling on that” Rhodey insists, unwilling to move even one bit. “We’ll make it right.”

It would be easy to give into the ease with which Rhodey promises something that is not actually in his control to offer. Tony will still wake up tomorrow, and none of his problems will have gotten any smaller. On the contrary, time and distance do not seem to make the heaviness in his arm go away, nor the nonsensical longing.  Over the course of this day, it had periodically risen and fallen, even. There is no ignoring the fact that Steve and he are now connected.  

“Can we?” Tony asks, concentrating back on the topic at hand. “I mean, so much bad stuff has happened because of this. People are dead or hurt, the fighting never comes to an end.”

For all that it is a big part of Tony’s life, war has always been an abstract thing, captured in statistics and equations, not in actual human lives. Tony is familiar with the recoil of a gun, but not with the force of impact in a body. He knows about the blast radius of bombs but not about the wreckage they leave behind. His best friend is part of the military, but he has never allowed himself to think about Rhodey not coming home.

“They aren’t fighting because they have your weapons,” Rhodey argues with a ferocity that soothes Tony a bit. Not enough to keep him from loading more blame onto his plate, but it is a beginning.

“But they do it so much more effectively with them,” Tony replies, self-loathing dripping from his tongue.

He has had so many ideas not involving weapons. He should have ignored his board of directors, should have ignored Obadiah even, and done something good for the world for once. How hard could it be? They are afraid of losing money, but not all profit has to be paid for in blood.  

“Tones –” Rhodey says slowly, gearing up for another argument.

“I know, I know,” Tony cuts him off quickly. He even manages to paste a smile on his face. “Moving on.”

In response, Rhodey holds him tighter for a minute, another promise of safety that could not possibly be upheld. It almost seems like this is it, that Rhodey will let it go now. Then, however, with grating nonchalance, Rhodey asks, “Why are you protecting the kidnappers?”

“What? I don’t – why would I?”

Rhodey knows him too well. Tony could bury him under a never-ending flood of arguments, all of them solid and logical, and Rhodey would still zero in on the fact that Tony is hiding something.

“Then why don’t you tell me their names,” Rhodey continues casually, as if he does not care for the answer either way. “I’m sure JARVIS has found something out already.”

The knowledge of all the information about the Avengers is weighing heavily on Tony. He sends a silent plea to his AI to not mess this up by unwanted autonomy for once. Miraculously, JARVIS remains silent.

“I can’t,” Tony then says as firmly as he can. He almost wants to disentangle from Rhodey but does not, knowing it would seem too defensive. “I – I know one of them.”

It is not even a complete lie. Bruce, as it turns out, is the one and only Dr. Bruce Banner. Tony has read all of his papers, has gushed over them really. It had been a hard hit for the scientific community when Bruce disappeared several years ago, running from a military contract he had apparently taken offense to. Colleagues had declared him another brilliant mind lost to scruples.  Considering the company Bruce is keeping now, something more sinister must have happened.

Bruce might not be the reason Tony is so tight-lipped about the kidnapping, but he will serve for now. He is a better alternative than making up some story about Steve without mentioning that they are soulmates.

“You know them?” Rhodey asks, leaning back to look at Tony with open incredulity. His eyes are turning just a shade more furious.

“One of them,” Tony corrects, keeping his tone even as if his heart is not beating wildly. “And he didn’t harm me. On the contrary, he helped me get out. He promised that they won’t come after me again.”

Rhodey does not believe him. Not fully. There are too many holes in Tony’s story. “And you –”

“Please, Rhodey,” Tony interrupts him, shoulders dropping. “I can’t fight all these battles at once.”

They are at an impasse, neither of them willing to back down. In the end, though, Rhodey will always care for Tony’s well-being.

“All right,” he says, although nothing is. “As long as you promise me you won’t fight them alone.”

Tony opens his mouth, mindless agreement lying on his tongue. He thinks better of it, though. Despite all their years of friendship, it is still incredibly hard to reach out for help.

“I called you as soon as I came home, right?” he then says, skirting the topic graciously enough that Rhodey lets it drop.

“Right,” Rhodey says, drawing out the word, then relaxes back into the cushions. “Now, do you want to go sleep in an actual bed, or are you condemning us both to hurting backs tomorrow morning?”

Smiling, Tony wonders for the umpteenth time how he deserves a friend like this. “I’m comfortable where I am.”

Rhodey sighs but does not seem surprised. “I knew you’d say that,” he mutters, but already adjusts his position to make it more comfortable for the both of them on the couch. “Sleep, you maniac. I have to catch an early flight tomorrow.”