Title: He Was
Summary: "Tony was done fighting battles. There was no way to move, no next thing to do, and – at this point – no more f**** to give." Tony was left in the harsh cold of the Siberian Bunker without a way home. Hydra saw their opportunity and took it. Tony was…Who the hell is Tony?
Rating by chapter: T+ (swear words, mentions of torture, gore)
Disclaimer: I do not own ANYTHING. This includes Marvel comics and movies mentioned.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Tony couldn't feel anything.
The cold had bothered him hours ago but now he was left with an ache in his very bones; something so without pain that he didn't know what to call the sensation. It wasn't peaceful or alarming but simply there on the edge of his subconscious.
He couldn't bring himself to care about the weight of the suit; his own creation stuck on him. There was no backup coming that he was aware of. No doubt the fight knocked his comms and GPS out. FRIDAY had gone silent the moment Steve rammed his shield –
Howard's shield into his chest. If Tony had the energy he would have used it to glare at the gleaming hunk of vibranium left by America's finest. Seeing as the suit was without power, his only option was to look up at the silver ceiling above him.
Sleep was calling him, but honestly Tony couldn't bring himself to care enough about it. If anything, his mind was finally quiet; nothing to worry about when you already fucked it all up.
If Roger's had just told him about his parents. If Tony hadn't mentioned Wanda – or had been given the chance to explain Wanda's situation. If Rogers wasn't best buds with the deadliest assassin in the world. If Tony was fast enough to catch Rhodey. If Rogers listened to one hundred seventeen nations.
If the team listened to Tony for once! If they had the decency to want accountability for their actions! If they didn't have the biggest god damn fight at an airport of all places!
If they trusted each other like Tony trusted them.
What utter bullshit.
But it wasn't anger that fueled his thoughts. No, it was disappointment – fear. He could have prevented this – should have been able to prevent this. The Accords were his fault. He had let everyone – the team, American Citizens, Pepper – down.
He should have been better.
The lure of sleep turned in a siren call. He was done fighting battles. There was no way to move, no next thing to do, and – at this point – no more fucks to give.
He closed his eyes and waited for whatever was supposed to happen next.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Tony woke to footsteps.
It was finally dark in the abandoned HYDRA base, way too dark for Tony to see anything. He could still feel the weight of his suit on him and his injuries were another matter altogether. He was in pain now instead of the numbness he felt before.
He tried to move his arm only to hiss when he realized that the gauntlet had crushed his wrist. Yeah, definitely broken. Wonderful.
Instead of trying anything else that could physically hurt him, he listened to the footsteps getting closer and closer. No doubt Pepper had sent SHIELD agents to him. Even though they had broken up, he knew Rhodey had kept her updated throughout this whole mess.
Only, when he finally caught a glimpse of the people coming towards them, he realized by their weapons that they were not SHIELD issued. Nor were they in any army uniform that Tony recognized.
Shit. This was a rogue organization.
With no weapons, no way to move, and no way to defend himself, he did the next best thing: played dead. Not one of his greatest moments, he had to admit. The great Iron Man, playing dead. But there were at least four people coming towards him. If he was going down, he was going down swinging.
"He alive?"
Damn, the soldier was speaking German. Now there was a possibility he was dealing with HYDRA. And, really, how off could he be? This was once their best keep secret. He was sure they would have kept tabs on it.
One of the soldiers drew closer to him, inches away from checking the pulse point on his neck when Tony moved. It took all of his remaining will power, but he managed to swing his arm around and slammed his suit's forearm against the guy's head, knocking him out immediately.
"Don't move!"
Tony didn't have an option. Even with the adrenaline cursing through his system, he was out for the count. Stars began to dance in his vision. One of them roughly pushed his head to the side, exposing his neck. Within another second, a needle was shoved into his veins.
Even fear couldn't keep Tony awake.
The last thing he remembered was the feeling of a drug wreaking havoc in his system, someone(s?) lifting him – suit and all – and then…
Darkness.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
When Rhodey woke up, someone was squeezing his hand. He groaned, squeezing slightly back, and opened his eyes.
Pepper looked worried, which was something he wasn't ever going to be used to. In all of his years being Pepper's friend, she always had an impressive poker face, especially when dealing with Tony. When he realized why – the hospital room being a big clue – he leaned his head back in his pillow and let out a breathy "shit."
Pepper chucked, but he could tell it was without any humor. "You feeling okay?"
Rhodey glared up at the white ceiling tiles. Considering he still couldn't feel his legs, he couldn't imagine he was doing any better. "Doctor say anything?" He looked around the room quickly, "Where's Tony?"
Pepper squeezed his hand again. When Rhodey looked at again, she had tears in her eyes.
"What happened?" He asked, feeling his heart beating out of his chest. The last thing he remembered was Tony in this very room, looking so guilty that even in Rhodey' drugged test, Rhodey made a joke about Rogers being a self-righteous dick.
Pepper shook her head, biting her lip.
"Pepper," He asked again, this time a little more firm, "What happened?"
"He's missing," She said finally, nearly whispering the words. "FRIDAY can't locate him, half of the Avengers are missing – taken from the Raft, no doubt by the Captain's doing – and I'm stuck here without a way to help him."
"The Accords," Rhodey said without thinking. He winced. "Ross could have-" arrested Tony.
"Ross sent out a whole slew of American Soldiers to Siberia under the guise of arresting Tony for violating the law." Pepper released the death grip on his hand. He immediately missed it. "It wasn't Ross."
Pepper looked close to tears again. "Happy's reviewing the footage that Ross recorded from storming the HYDRA base." Without a word, she pulled out her cell phone and showed him a picture…
"Shit."
The place was destroyed. There was clearly a fight there; scorch marks along the ceiling, cement walls and pillars thrown to the ground, blood everywhere – the place looked like a scene out of a horror movie.
The worst was what sat in the middle of picture, as if to mock him. There was no denying the Iron Man shaped crater, not with the blood that was pooled inside of it. With it there were drag marks of someone moving the gold titanium alloy suit. There was no way his best friend could have moved a hunk of useless metal that heavy.
He leaned back in his hospital bed, his head hitting the pillow. Now was not the time to have a mental breakdown.
"It wasn't SHIELD." Pepper whispered, gesturing lightly with her eyes of the security camera behind her in the hallway. "And the only other group that could possibly know because it's theirs-"
Hydra.
"Get me out of this hospital bed." Rhodey demanded, fully awake. He was not letting a god damn Nazi organization that named itself Hydra take his brother. "Now, Pepper."
Pepper opened her mouth and Rhodey feared that he was going to have to call the nurses and demand to be let out himself, but she closed it and nodded. If there was anything the two of them agreed on, it was their friendship with Tony.
She left the room without another word, giving Rhodey only a moment to feel helpless. Rhodey may have been Tony Stark's best friend, but he was a military man as well. He knew death and war; seen them hand in hand and handled them as well as could be expected. He knew chain of commands and how to follow orders. He knew that he should contact the UN and organize a search party, letting it off his hands.
But since this was Tony Stark…He was going to have to let go of his training and listen to his gut.
"Where the fuck would the rest of those idiots have the courage to hide and who would hide them?"
No one answered his muttered curse towards the rogue Avengers, but he didn't expect one. Instead he reached for his own cell phone lying on the hospital bed tray, only to hiss when he realized that it caused his back to flare up.
He took a deep breath. He was paralyzed from the waist down; a useless soldier who had no way to help his friend even if he did manage to find him. What was he thinking?
Ignoring his dark thoughts, he reached for the phone again and connected to the Stark servers over the hospital's WiFi. Instantly, he was greeted with thousands of security cameras around the world, searching for her creator.
"No luck, Fri?" He asked her anyway, watching as FRIDAY changed to a different ATM camera located in Siberia. "Where was Tony headed before all of this happened?"
"Boss was heading to Siberia to help Captain Rogers and The Winter Soldier with Zemo," FRIDAY went oddly silently, as if she was hesitating in telling him something.
She was saved by Pepper, who came back with a doctor and a nurse. It took the both of them only thirty seconds to realize Rhodey wasn't taking no as an answer and soon they were disconnecting him from his IV and getting his discharges papers.
"You will take these pills twice a day," The same nurse told him, handing him a prescription pill bottle with some sort of pain medication. "They'll make you a little drowsy, but it's better than the alternative. You need to have a balanced meal with each otherwise you'll be throwing up."
The nurse glared slightly at him. The only reason Rhodey didn't glare back was both the respect she had gained from him in her short no-nonsense speech and her apparent understanding of the situation. He nodded at her and offered her a quick "of course" in reply.
She brought the wheelchair – how humiliating – over to his bed side and lowered the hospital bed. Without a word, she called over another nurse that was hovering in the doorway. With skill, they transferred him from the bed and into the chair so fast that he only felt a small tinge of pain.
"I wish you the best of luck, Mr. Rhodes," the nurse said, now offering a small smile. She began to walk away, only to turn at the last moment. "I hope you find him."
With that, Pepper grabbed the handles of his wheelchair and began to push him out of the room. "She's the same nurse that worked with Tony after his surgery to remove the reactor," Pepper steered him out of the hospital doors as if this was something normal for her.
Rhodey had never admired Pepper more than this moment. He didn't need pity right now.
"Pepper-"
"Wait until we're out of here," Since when was Pepper the one worried about spies? That was Rhodey's job. In fact, who was running Stark Industries right now?
Finally, they arrived at the front of the SHIELD hospital. Rhodey spotted Happy right away. He was quick to open the side passenger door and – before Rhodey could even think about how embarrassing it was going to be to try and get into the car – Happy put one rail of the wheelchair down and picked him up by his knees and supported his back.
Rhodey blinked, and everyone else was in the car.
"Okay," he said, shaking his head lightly. Man, he was glad he surrounded himself with honest to god good people, "Fri never told me what happened with Zemo or where Captain Righteous went with his war buddy."
Happy let out a loud puff of air. "Buddy, you don't even wanna know. It's a shitstorm."
"I didn't think Steve would let it go that far," Pepper told him, her famous red head temper coming out. "He could have killed him!"
Rhodey's head was spinning. Steve killing Tony? "Somebody tell me!"
Oh, boy did they ever. Rhodey thought he was angry at Steve when the Captain refused to listen to one hundred seventeen nations. Now? Red was flashing through his vision. Rhodey could only the see the picture that Pepper showed him before – of which he thought the whacked out super soldiers attacked them – and could now only see Steve and his best bud, nearly killing his friend.
"Do we have any idea where they are now?" Rhodey bit out, "As much as I hate to admit it, if Hydra has Tony, we need all the firepower we got."
"I can help with that," FRIDAY answered. His cell phone suddenly pinged, and he was greeted to the security video of the outside of the base. "King T'Challa was last seen dropping off Zemo into UN custody. No other planes were spotted leaving the HYDRA base and no footprints were found leaving it."
The time stamp quickly changed. "Approximately twelve hours after the King left, another fighter jet was spotted near the base and I lost the signal."
Rhodey sighed. It made sense that the King of Wakanda would house them. Since Wakanda only barely listens to the rulings of the UN, no one would be allowed to send a drone, let alone a person, out there to check. Meanwhile, no one knew T'Challa was there at the base.
"Okay, we gotta send out a message to T'Challa." Rhodey was quickly developing a headache. "Something friendly. We don't want him to think we're associated with the Accords right now."
"Already on it," FRIDAY replied, showing him lines of code. Rhodey was an engineer, but there was no way that he understood what was going on there. "pushing past Wakanda's firewall servers now."
"Oh yeah, that shows we're friendly," Happy muttered, making a sharp left turn and merging onto eighty. "Let's hack into their network!"
"Boss requested to have a secure line with the King after the Berlin Conference." FRIDAY paused. "What better way to make friends than to admire their network systems?"
Rhodey knew that last part was said by Tony himself, but FRIDAY did it no justice.
"I need to get back to SI," Pepper told them, running a shaky hand through her hair. "I can't deal with this. There's nothing I can do."
Rhodey took her hand once again. "We'll find him," Rhodey promised, "you keep Stark Industries running, okay?"
"Where to then?" Happy asked, only partly interrupting. Honestly, he was never one for pep talks. "Because I'm heading to the compound…"
"That's fine," Pepper replied, almost absent mindedly. No doubt she was planning ways to get around SI press. "I'll borrow a car from Tony's…"
She stopped once again. Rhodey felt her pain. That was Tony's dwelling place; whenever there was something stressful going on, Tony would no doubt be in the lab downstairs, tinkering on something even Rhodey couldn't comprehend. To not see Tony there would be a horrible reminder of the situation he was in.
The drove in silence
Silence that was usually filled with his brother's vibrant voice.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Tony woke up in a haze of pain.
White light flashed above him, reminding him of harsh desert sands and a kind doctor; of torture and pain and helplessness and fear. Of redemption and revenge. Of love and loss.
White that reminded him of hospital rooms and concerned teammates.
White that had him trying in vain to move his arms off a solid, unforgiving ground. His wrists were held down with a thick metal cuff attached to the same metal table underneath him. His ankles received the same harsh treatment.
"Ah," A lightly accented voice said, causing tony to spasm in his restraints. "The prisoner has awoken. Wonderful."
"Hey, asshole, "Tony said, only now realizing that his words were slurred. Were they still drugging him? "I've been through this gimmick- I don't negotiate with creepy, weird scientists,"
Tony gestured around the room with his eyes. He wasn't going to freak out. He didn't have the luxury of thinking about a disgusting operating table in the middle of nowhere.
"Most who try to kill me end of dying first. So why don't fuck off now and I'll consider not burning this place to the ground later?"
The man moved towards him faster than his drugged brain could process. One moment doctor asshole was behind him, the next he was looming over him.
Jesus Christ, this dude was hit with the ugly stick. Scars marred his face and once blonde hair was now only in rough patches on his head. To complete the look, he wore silver, round glasses like Harry Potter.
"Confident for a man that is restrained to a table, hmm?"
Tony met doctor asshole's gaze, fear only a knot in his stomach, and spat on him. Because, hell, if he was restrained to a table, at least he had one thing left.
Tony had to give it to the man, he calmly took a paper towel from his (holy fuck was that a surgical tray?) and wiped the perfectly aim mucus bowel off of his face.
Without another word, the man took a three-inch-long needle from the surgical tray and filled about ten mm of a clear liquid into it.
"This, Mr. Stark," The man held up the needle as if it was God's will brought down to earth. "Is Hydra's greatest creation. With this, you'll become better than Sargent Barnes – no memories, no ties to your life. With this, you'll be our greatest asset."
"I won't pick up a single screw driver for you," Tony met the man's gaze once again, feeling something inside of him shift, "And I will die before I let Hydra have my weapons."
It might have been his greatest moment.
He had never been so serious in the sight of danger. This was Hydra – the organization that killed almost the whole world, that nearly killed Captain America with his own best bud, and had managed to escape S.H.I.E.L.D's radar for years – this wasn't a time for sarcastic jokes and delusions; this was a time for Tony to give everything he had.
He couldn't become their puppet. He refused.
"Such a strong belief," The needle was shoved roughly into his arm, the sting causing him to push away from him, only to be met with metal cuffs, "for such a weak man."
The scientist shoved the plunger down.
James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, Steve Rogers, James Barnes, Bruce Banner…
Fire ignited his bones. Screams filled his own ears.
James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, Steve Rogers, James Barnes…
He knew nothing but pain and cries and agony; nothing but the metal table beneath and the white light above him.
James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, Steve Rogers…
He was Anthony Edward Stark: born of intelligence and made of iron.
James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan…
He was Iron Man: a hero.
James Rhodes, Pepper Potts…
He was Tony Stark; he had a beautiful woman and a caring best friend. He had people he loved, and they loved him back.
James Rhodes.
He was.