WARNINGS for self-harm, mental breakdown, (implied) verbal child abuse, physical violence against abuser (aka Howard Stark gets punched in the face), canonical character death.
This might've been therapy for me but it might make matters worse for you so please, please take care of yourself first x
THIS STORY DOES NOT CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME.
Despite the warnings this does have a happy ending. Tony Stark will always get a happy ending if I have anything to say about it.
They're written down in eternity
But you'll never see the price it costs – the scars collected all their lives
When everything's lost, they pick up their hearts and avenge defeat
Before it all starts, they suffer through harm just to touch a dream
Oh, pick yourself up 'cause
Legends never die
[Legends never die - League of Legends ft. Against the Current]
The first time Rhodey swears he is going to kill Howard Stark is on a Tuesday in March.
It's about 8 p.m. and he's wearing a ridiculous apron still sprinkled with last night's meal to shield the MIT hoodie he's wearing underneath from the worst of tonight's cooking. He hasn't done his laundry yet and it's the only clean piece of clothing in his wardrobe. His mind has been stuck on a Black Sabbath song all day, Iron Man he thinks, and he's grinning like an idiot over a letter his sister sent him.
He remembers the situation vividly, almost disturbingly clear and in color.
He also remembers marching over to Tony's room - almost annoyed at his best friend because he's late, again, but not quite because it's a Sunday so whatever - a quick quip on his lips that dies the second he sees the kid.
Tony Stark is a child still, way too young to be attending college if anyone were to ask Rhodey and yet smart enough he's probably going to graduate summa cum laude if he even puts half his mind to it. He barely gives their teachers the time of day, rarely shows up to lectures unless they intrigue him and rather spends almost all of his free time in the lab.
Most days the scrawny teenager whose hair is almost always in dire need of a cut seems larger than life, exuding a kind of confidence and self-assurance that leaves Rhodey reeling. When he's with people he trusts he's a lot calmer, a lot quieter and his smiles reach his eyes then. Really, Rhodey has only ever seen him like this when they're alone or when his mother visits.
In those moments he can still see Tony beneath all the Stark he's broadcasting to the rest of the world.
It's that kid that became Rhodey's best friend almost instantly and while Tony generally doesn't want to hear it, Rhodey takes care of him because he is still a 15 year old boy who's lost in a world he can't quite understand yet.
He has never seen Tony as small as on that Tuesday in March.
When he kicks open the door after not getting a reply three times, Tony shrinks away from the sound and the deep guttural sob he shrieks out in surprise is the most horrific thing James Rhodes has heard to that day.
He's curled up in a fetal position.
Laying on his right side, knees tugged to his chest, arms hugging his shins and face buried in his legs he looks like he's trying to make himself small enough to be overlooked. His tiny body is shaking with silent sobs, his hair is standing up in every which direction and his fingernails are digging into the flesh of his shin.
The sight of him makes something roar in the older boy's chest. Something so animalistic he's never felt before, something angry and livid and feral. Like a lion witnessing one of their pack hurt.
Rhodey stops in the doorway, not sure what to do but sure as hell he can't leave him like that, no matter how much the boy recoils from his presence.
He crouches down next to him, hand reaching out but stopping short of actually touching his friend, scared of accidentally breaking him.
He looks infinitely fragile and young and defeated.
"Tones?" he whispers, blinking away the burning in his eyes when the only reply is a shake of his head and nails digging deeper into flesh. "Can I touch you?" he continues, almost certain he won't get a positive reply and completely taken aback when there's a jerky nod.
Maybe he shouldn't be surprised. Despite how much Tony claims to hate being touched, Rhodey has found out pretty early into their friendship that he misses human contact. He has not yet managed to fully grasp why he pushes everyone else away but right now he's glad he's being let in.
Ever so gently he places his hand on Tony's. He feels a shiver run through the boy's body, the coldness of his skin and the first trickles of warm blood. Softly he unclamps his hands, stops him from hurting himself any more and it's like the second the pain is gone, something breaks inside of him.
The quiet sobs turn into a miserable whimper first, morph into a blood-curdling howl and then settle into wretched snivels.
Tony is shaking and screaming, kicking his legs and throwing his arms like the world is ending, like this is his last fight and he's giving his all before giving in to his inexorable fate. The last uprisings of a dying man.
Rhodey stays with him through it all. A hand on his head to keep him from hitting it on the floor.
He's only there to keep him from scratching his face and biting his arms and punching his head. He's there to remind him to take a second to breathe when he's close to passing out from hyperventilating. He's there to pull him back into the moment when he's too far gone.
He's scared.
He's scared for his best friend. Scared of what happened, of what he might do to himself and of what Tony would've done hadn't he bolted into his room.
The beast in his chest scares him too. Every scream Tony lets out nurtures the creature until all he sees is red and all he feels is anger and hatred. He's never hated before, never felt the need to.
Hatred is scary. Like a part of him has given up on the goodness and dove deep into the dark abyss of the worst humanity has to offer – a bleak world without laughter and more blood running down the streets than water.
"Tony?" he whispers when his best friend has calmed down, voice almost breaking on that single word.
He hums, a weird noise at the back of his throat that reverberates through Rhodey's body like a beacon, touching every part that is already on high alert to protect - defend. His body works on his own when it does what it's been wanting to do since stepping inside the room. He pulls Tony over, lets him bury his face into his stomach and holds on as tightly as he dares without breaking him.
Whether it's a few minutes or hours later, he's not sure, but he has to know.
"What happened?" he asks, afraid of the answer.
Tony looks up, a bit of the tomato sauce from Rhodey's apron smeared across the bridge of his nose. He shrugs. "My dad called."
And the beast in his chest growls and he swears he's going to kill Howard Stark as he gently runs his fingers through his best friend's hair.
The second time Rhodey wants to physically hurt his best friend's dad he's slightly drunk.
Summer break is almost over and he's gotten back to campus two days earlier on Friday, taking the additional time to settle in and meet up some of the guys he rarely sees during the semester. He's grinning so widely he thinks his face might be splitting in two, still relaxed, full of his mum's food and happy to get to see his friends again.
He's humming to himself when he pushes open the door to their dorm, his shoulder brushing the frame a little too harshly to be intentional but when he sees the lights on and a huge parcel of Tony's favorite snacks on the messy kitchen table his smile grows impossibly wider and he laughs.
"Tones?" he calls out, chest fuzzy with alcohol and excitement at finally getting to see his best friend again. "You back?"
"I am, platypus," Tony yells back and Rhodey can hear the smile in his voice, can practically sense him rolling his eyes as he asks, "Did you get drunk without me?"
Rhodey snickers, "You're not even allowed to drink. You're a baby. And," he hiccups, stumbling a little over his shoes as he's kicking them off, "you're so tiny. Tiny Tony."
"Rude," he hears him mutter through the closed room door. "You're not getting any of Jarvis' pastries for that."
He has reached the door, knocking a random rhythm on the hard surface before pressing down on the handle.
It's only later that he will realize he was in the middle of saying something when Tony started yelling at him. Later, he will wonder why he just went into the room without asking permission first like they had agreed on ever since moving into the same dorm. Later he will give himself a headache with what-ifs and could-have beens.
But later is later and now is now. And right now he's tipsy and he's missed his best friend so much he's physically aching for a hug and to see his ironic half smile and then the real one after that. The one that reaches his eyes and welcomes him home.
He wants to tell him about how his brother managed to crash their dad's motorcycle into a barn full of straw and how his mum wants to meet him after having heard so much about him. He wants to make up for lost times, ask about his time at home, maybe drink some more from Tony's secret high quality alcohol stash and have a fun evening with his friend.
What he wants, however, gets thrown out of the window the second the door falls open and the boy comes into view.
Tony's frozen, head turned towards him and face contorted into a weird grimace somewhere between terrified and sad. His arms are up in the air, in the middle of slipping into the dark red MIT hoodie that he pretends to hate but loves to cuddle up into. His bony body is shivering from the cold breeze but apart from that he doesn't move.
Rhodey stops, too, blinking rapidly as his sluggish brain is trying to keep up with what his eyes are seeing. It's so abrupt and so far from everything he expected to see that he needs almost a full minute to realize that the red of the hoodie matches the scratch marks on the pale skin of his best friend's body.
They're on his arms and back and belly and chest. The skinny body a canvas of red and blue and yellow and faint pink.
They are screaming at him.
Where were you? You were supposed to protect him. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't –
When Tony eventually shrugs into the piece of clothing, Rhodey manages to unfreeze, too. His brain is still lagging behind when his body moves with the sheer force of his fury to close the distance between them and to take ahold of his friend's shoulders to get him to turn towards him.
The anger is back and with the alcohol in the system he feels both more empowered and a lot more helpless. It's consuming him. He's trembling - body shaking and eyes burning - and he despises it. He's not the one who got hurt. He's not –
"What happened?" he demands, voice cracking on the two words when Tony finally meets his eyes. Tony who's smiling that half-smile that doesn't reach is eyes. Tony who's hurt. "What – Who –"
"Shh. It's okay, honey bear. Just breathe."
Tony's voice is impossibly soft and it doesn't make sense. Why is he being so calm? Why is he the one putting his hands on top of Rhodey's to keep them from shaking so much? Why is he the one soothingly talking him down from the edge? Why isn't he sad or hurt or confused?
It's all wrong.
"Tones," he tries again, whispers because he can't seem to find the strength to do any more than that. His body decides to go limp then, grateful when Tony joins him on the floor, still holding on to him. "Did your –" he can't bring himself to say the words that the monster in his chest has been screaming ever since seeing the marks but he has to know so he turns his hands almost in slow motion and grabs his friend's. Ever so gently he rides up the sleeves of the hoodie.
The wounds look worse up close and he feels strangely detached when he takes in the skin that used to be soft and white that is now ripped open and red. While he's trying to break through the fog in his mind, the beast in his chest keeps roaring and fighting against its restraints. He's got bigger things to worry about than that, so he keeps the leash on.
"Did your dad do this?" He looks up when he asks, meeting his friend's wide eyes because he has to know if he's telling the truth. His eyes are always telling the truth even when he doesn't want them to. Especially then.
Tony scoffs and it's such an ugly sound coming from his lips but he's not pulling away, not putting up the walls he tends to hide behind just yet. "My dad wouldn't hurt me," he tells him and Rhodey searches his gaze for even the slightest hint of a lie but there's none and he almost wishes there was because what's the alternative?
He can think of one and he's desperately praying it's not that. It has to be something else. Anything.
"Something happened," he presses through gritted teeth with a racing heart. He's too scared to ask, too worried to let it go. He wants to scream but he can't bring himself to make a sound.
"It's not his fault."
"Look at yourself!" There's anger in his voice now, a fire in his eyes, but it dies as soon as it came when he feels Tony tense from where his hands are resting lightly on his wrists.
Tony doesn't meet his eyes when he amends. "It's not his fault I'm too weak and can't – I can't –" He shivers then, voice growing impossibly quieter, "I'm just not strong enough to handle it. But he's not hurting me. He's not."
How he can sound so much like a child and a battle hardened soldier Rhodey will never understand but he can't let this stand. He puts the lightest amount of pressure on the other boy's wrists. "Tony," he murmurs to get his attention. "Tones, look at me."
Surprisingly enough he actually does. His gaze is stubborn and he's wearing a frown but he's looking at him.
Suddenly he feels like he's in over his head.
Tony is barely a teenager, a child, and he isn't much older. What is he supposed to say? What if he says the wrong thing? He realizes with a start that there is no right thing to say. No silver lining or shitty romantic quote of a rainbow after the storm. The only rainbow he can think of is his friend's skin and it's wrong and he doesn't want to address it, doesn't feel he can handle the situation like he should.
He has to say something, though, because Tony is listening right now and lord knows it doesn't happen very often. He trusts him, believes him. Whatever he's going to say next is going to stick and it scares him shitless.
"If he makes you feel like you have to hurt yourself, he's the one hurting you." He says simply because it is as easy as that. It's all he can think about. He's hurting my friend.
"But Stark men are made of iron."
"No," he shakes his head with a scoff and leans forward to rest his forehead against the younger boy's shoulder, relaxing when he feels him leaning into him in return. "No one is made of iron, Tony. No one should be."
When Rhodey punches Howard Stark it's the first time they meet and he's in a suit that cost half of what the liquid in the man's whiskey tumbler undoubtedly did. The blood leaves permanent stains on his favorite tie – the one that Tony got him for his birthday with cartoon drawings of Newton's laws.
He doesn't mean to eavesdrop, he has been raised better than that, but he's sure as hell glad he does.
He's strolling through the huge halls of the Maclaurin Building, left hand tugged into the pocket of his dress pants, right one holding his glass of champagne, looking for his best friend that went missing from the face of the earth after the valedictorian speech.
It was a great speech about learning and friendship and home away from home. It was about the future much more than it revisited the past. It sounded hopeful and a lot older, a lot wiser, than someone who graduated college at 17 should be.
Rhodey knows Tony was scared and he did his best to cheer him on in preparation for this, spent countless hours foregoing his own sleep to reassure him and keep him from tumbling down the deep end of the cliff his mind has built in anticipation of this very day.
He has already walked past the closed doors of what looks to be an old library without giving it too much thought, mind happily buzzing with his diploma, champagne and all the possibilities his future now held, when the hushed voices register in his brain, making him stop in his tracks.
He doesn't get the first part but his mind snaps to attention at the muttered "Yes, sir."
He knows that voice like his own mother's, knows the different emotions and quips and smarts it usually carries and knows when the larger than life voice sounds defeated and lost and sad.
The other voice rises in volume and before he can think better of it, he bursts through the door, champagne spilling over the rim of his glass, running down his hand to drip to the floor.
It's cold and sticky and he doesn't care.
His heartrate is elevated, as is his blood pressure he figures from how he can feel the blood rushing into his head and stomach with a sheer uncontainable force. He's nauseous and terrified because he's standing in front of Howard Stark and the man is silently fuming and his gaze is exuding pointed boredom and murderousness at the same time.
The emotion that gains the upper hand, though, is hot-boiling rage.
He swallows past the distaste and the all-consuming red and smiles tightly at the older man, taking a step forward with an out-stretched hand, conveniently putting himself between Tony and his father.
"Hello Mister Stark, sir," he greets him, voice artificially polite. "I'm James Rhodes, Tony's roommate. I've been looking for him."
The man eyes his hand critically before taking another sip from his drink, eyes cold and hard as steel and similarly welcoming.
Stark men are made of iron, he recalls Tony mutter again and again. He can see that Howard Stark is. He would almost feel sad for him, hadn't he been so angry.
"Anthony has told me about you."
That's it. That and a pointed look, telling him to get the fuck out, is all the response he gets.
Now, Rhodey is usually a peaceful person and he might have let this slide and gotten out to leave them to talk, hadn't he turned around to find Tony with his right hand clasped so firmly around his left wrist his knuckles are turning white.
He has seen him break often enough to know his best friend's tells. He knows the signs, knows the marks his nails are going to leave and he has long since sworn himself to never let that happen again. He has to intervene.
He smiles again. Cheeks hurting with how fake it is.
"Actually we've been wanting to toast him for his speech and we can't do that without our guest of honor, do you mind if I borrow him real quick?"
"I do mind," comes the hollering reply, followed by a humorless laugh. "Anthony is staying with me. You can toast to that failure of a speech on your own while I talk to the disgrace of a son."
"Excu –"
"Rhodey. Leave."
He whirls around, meeting his best friend's pleading gaze, then back to see Howard triumphantly taking another sip from his stupid drink and his mind just stops.
The blood is boiling too hot in his stomach. The worry is overriding every straight thought he might've formed. The anger is pooling in his chest and it pushes a growl from his lungs and past his lips. It sounds feral and vicious and bold.
His vision is red, turning the venerable room into a battle field even before he lunges forward to plant his fist in Howard Stark's face.
Distantly he feels the blunt force tear open his skin and the pain shoot up his hand. He's also semi aware of his glass dropping to the ground and breaking into a million pieces. Howard's whiskey tumbler joins it on the floor.
He hears Tony scream his name but there's a part in his brain that's trained in analyzing his tone. He's not sobbing, he's not hurting so he doesn't let himself focus on it.
The only thing real is the blood smeared across his knuckles and the beast in his chest that lets out a victorious scream before gracefully sinking back down into the dark abyss of his already cooling rage.
Now that the anger is slowly leaving his body, fear bubbles up. Not necessarily for himself.
"Tones," he urges, turning around to grab his best friend's wrist, pulling him along, "Come on."
Tony hesitates for less than a heartbeat before he latches onto the older boy and they bolt out of the door and run.
When Howard Stark dies it feels like the end of the world to Rhodey. Which is funny considering how often he has wished for the day to come, how passionately he has hated the man for years.
He's getting back from a mission – just in time for Christmas – when he picks up the whispers of the pilot who must've heard something via radio.
"Have you heard about Stark?" The words almost give him a stroke.
"Junior?" He presses his lips together, holds his breath until his lungs are screaming for release.
"Nah, senior. Heard he got into a car accident." Rhodey exhales, heart growing infinitely lighter and while he isn't happy, he feels relief settle over his soul. He can deal with that.
"What happened?"
"Not sure. They've been rushed to a hospital." They?
"They?"
"I think his wife was with him. Maria Stark."
It's like the rug gets pulled out from under his feet.
He's standing on a heavily enforced military chopper yet he feels like he's daring the ocean's high tide in nothing more than a paper boat. Water is getting in, the paper is dissolving, the boat's sinking and he can't do anything but scream against the endless water for someone to tell him it's just a dream.
It's not.
He knows the second he hears the news. He feels it confirmed when he gets to land and calls Tony only to get his ridiculously deadpan answering machine.
The real confirmation comes in form of a badly researched TV segment shooting right in front of the hospital both Starks were admitted to.
Fear settles over him like nothing he's ever felt on a battle field. An ineradicable terror takes hold of his body and his every thought. A deeply ingrained instinct screams at him to move, to find Tony, to get him out of wherever he is.
So that's exactly what he does.
He bolts out of the building before his superior can come at him about mission reports, barges into several armed guards and almost buries the military SUV in a tree on the way to the mansion.
He finds Tony in the living room of the museum-like house. His best friend is slumped against the grand piano, clinging to a bottle of Howard Stark's finest whiskey, with an empty one on the floor beside him.
The worst thing, Rhodey decides, is the look in his eyes. Or lack thereof.
Tony is staring straight ahead, unmoving, not blinking, not crying. His eyes are unnervingly empty when they meet his. The lack of response is downright scary. Tony has always spoken volumes without uttering a word. A single look is always enough to know where he's at, how he's feeling and what's wrong.
Now, though, Rhodey can't tell shit from the brown orbs staring back at him. They're blank, disconcertingly close to looking dead.
"Hey," he greets him with a hoarse voice because he doesn't know what else to say. He reaches out and settles a hand on the bony shoulder, the other one gentle pulling the glass bottle from the death grip it's held in.
His best friend's body is cold and he can feel him shaking but he doesn't fight against the touch.
"How are you doing?" It feels wrong, wrong, wrong to ask but he has to know.
Tony seems to sense his inner conflict and cocks his head to the side. Or maybe he just lacks the energy to continue holding it upright anymore.
"I'm here, you know," he whispers, hoping against hope that it gets through to the shell of a man he's holding in his arms. "You're not alone. You're never alone."
He's not sure what does the job – if it's his words or the circles he's drawing on his collarbone with his thumb – but he feels close to sobbing in relief when Tony finally acknowledges his presence.
He blinks once, twice, three times before taking in a wheezing breath and opening his mouth to speak. When he does it's a barely-there whisper, more a puff of air than intentionally formed words. "She's really gone, huh?"
And then Rhodey watches his best friend for years break into a million little pieces right there in his arms.
It feels a lot like the first time he held a sobbing scrawny teenager but unlike that time in their stuffed dorm at MIT, there is no one to direct his anger at. There's no bad guy in this scenario that he knows of, no one to blame and nothing to do.
He's helplessly hugging the shaking man who's still a boy in his eyes and prays that he won't lose him to this because he's not sure he can.
Tony just lost both his parents and there is nothing he can do to make any of it better but he's going to make damn well sure he won't lose himself, too.
Rhodey doesn't think about these moments very often anymore but he does revisit them when he's preparing his best man's speech.
A part of him wants to gloss over the ugly parts like Tony has been doing for years to make people laugh with a charismatic speech of a happy friendship, a perfect groom but it feels wrong to abolish moments so defining for both of them.
He cries a lot during the speech and through the veil of tears he can see he's not the only one.
The ridiculously big hall is filled to the brim with people.
Table over table over table full of various acquaintances, crowded in a way that is proper for the wedding of a billionaire and the CEO of the largest tech conglomerate in the world. He knows how difficult compiling the guest list had been and he still has to bite back a laugh thinking about how Tony, much to Pepper's chagrin, decided to handle it – by pinning a note to the bulletin boards of all New York offices and see who would join them.
Tony still thinks these people are only here for the gossip and the good food and maybe in parts that's true but Rhodey knows better. He has talked to quite a few of them – most of which regaled him with a story of something or the other that Tony Stark did for them without prompting. He has heard everything from paid medical bills, free mini-bars in offices, back-friendly chairs and emergency holidays.
Most of these things he's sure his friend has forgotten all about because it's who he is and what he does. He sees a problem he can fix - he does, no questions asked.
When his gaze travels over the three tables in his closer proximity he feels the familiar surge of protectiveness flare up in his chest.
After everything that's happened the Avengers have been forgiven but Rhodey has yet to forget.
Their reactions rank from nostalgic over surprised to happy. It's their loss, he thinks as he keeps talking, that they haven't been part of so many of the stories being told. They could've been. Tony would've let them but a possessive part of him is glad, he's not sure they would've been able to appreciate the enigma that is his best friend.
On their table – the inner circle of the Ironfam as Tony has come to dub them in preparation for the big day – there's a bunch of people, more than he knows for a fact Tony has ever expected to call family.
Happy, ridiculously happy for once, who's meeting his eyes conspiratorially. Next to him the kid's aunt, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a warm smile. There's the Harley kid who has already promised to get out the good stories once he's done making everyone cry but he's sniffling, too.
Next to the groom Peter is perched on the edge of his seat, eyes growing almost comically wide and glassy the longer the speech goes on. He's not looking at Rhodey at all, instead choosing to look up to his mentor, eyes are glistening with adoration, pride and unconditional love.
There's Pepper, the stunning bride, fierce and protective with an arm wrapped around her husband's waist. Her smile doesn't lose its radiance when the tears start rolling down her cheeks, if anything it makes her look more beautiful.
Her eyes are thankful and he understands because he's thankful to her, too. The two of them have been doing a bang up job team working to keep Tony tethered to this world.
In the middle of it all, in the most expensive wedding suit money can buy, complete with insanely fancy custom-made Spider-Man cuff links stands his best friend, one hand settled on his wife's hip, the other on his kid's head. He's beaming at him, eyes full of mirth and memories and tears.
In some ways he has never stopped being the scrawny teenager Rhodey instantly became friends with. He doesn't think he'll ever forget the pain he's been through, the steps backward and breakdowns and abysses he's fallen into. He doesn't want to, either.
Looking back he can still feel the echoes of an anger that used to consume him but he's better than that now – older, calmer. He still feels the lingering satisfaction of that one punch he got in, the exhilarating moment of youthful recklessness of finally having done something to defend someone precious to him.
The one emotion that has never left is his worry for Tony Stark. It has changed over the years, evolved and ripened, as both his inner and outer battles have grown (Much to Rhodey's dismay. How is he supposed to defend his idiot best friend from aliens and wormholes?).
And the one thing that has never faltered and has only ever grown stronger with time is his belief in that boy, the man, his Tony. No matter how worried or afraid or angry he has been, he has always known they would get here eventually even when Tony himself didn't.
He almost chokes on his last words as he's raising his glass to toast to the bride and groom.
"I'm proud of you, Tones," he says, biting his lip to keep from crying but still not able to suppress a sniffle, "and I love you."