Author's Note
Hi guys! This is my take on the 5+1 thing, and I really hope you all enjoy it. I'm still not sure how intensely Stony this fic will be yet, but I'll figure it out.
This is set post-Civil War, but let's just all pretend IW didn't happen please and thank you 3
I don't know when Civil War exactly took place (I'm leaving the specific year out of it, but the whole 5+1 will span about a year), but this first chapter is set in Feb/March.
Basically, I just want my two babies to be friends again, and there will be lots of Peter & Tony because I love that ADORABLE father-son thing they've got going on too.
And also, in case anything comes across as that, I'm not bashing either side I love both of them equally.
If you like it please favorite and follow and I'd love to read your reviews :)
"…I know I hurt you, Tony…"
"…I wish we agreed on the Accords, I really do…"
"…so no matter what, I promise you. If you need us-if you need me- I'll be there..."
Sighing, Tony put the letter down. He'd read it so many times by now, the physical paper was merely a prop. He could cite the damn thing word-for-word in his sleep.
It had been a few months since he'd received the package, with this letter and that phone.
Initially, when the letter came, he'd held it close, immediately keeping it safely in his lab, tucked safely under a Spider-Man bobblehead. It seemed right there, like a fusion of the most important parts of him- the kid that made him feel like a hero, and the hero that reminded him that he was human.
He found himself re-reading the letter almost every day, found himself hoping that more lines would magically appear. He didn't know what he wanted to read, had no idea what words could have been written to make everything completely alright again, but he just wished there was more.
The more he read it, the calmer he felt, until his eyes fell on Rhodes again, limping and inching his way around the Compound, and he's reminded of that almost fatal fall, of that pain and anger, and of the fact that it was Steve's fault (because his anger doesn't let him distinguish between direct cause and indirect cause), and he's tempted to rip the letter into tiny little pieces and shove each piece individually up Steve Roger's ass.
At times like these, Tony thinks it's a good thing he has no idea where Steve is.
He kept the letter under the bobblehead until one day it got really bad, and he accidentally makes a small tear in the side. And then proceeds to have a complete meltdown.
"Rhodes, you don't understand, it was all I had left," Tony says in a small voice, sitting on the floor of his lab, hunched in on himself, uneasy breathing and fists clenched too tight.
This was "Post- Panic Attack Tony", a sight that Rhodes was all too familiar with.
He slides himself down the wall to sit next to him and stretches his legs out, already exhausted from this movement.
"It's not even torn, Tony. It's fine. It's the paper version of a paper cut," he says, placing a gentle hand on Tony's back, the other tapping Tony's fists repeatedly, reminding him to unclench them before he hurt himself.
"I'll put some tape on it for you, I'll even laminate that stupid thing for you. Just, calm down man."
Slowly, Tony takes deep breaths, finally uncurling and sitting up. He runs his hand down his face, to wipe away the exhaustion and some stray tears that had found its way out of his eyes. He moves out of Rhodes' hand on him, and stands up, walking back to his table, as if nothing had happened.
"Don't call it stupid," is all Tony says, before hunching back over and tinkering with the web shooters he was upgrading and ignores Rhodes to the point that Rhodes worries that Tony's going to shut him out now.
So, he decides to head back to the lab after an hour, with a small piece of tape placed over the tear, and a cup of coffee, courtesy of F.R.I.D.A.Y, hoping that the gesture would convey a silent apology for being insensitive, instead bumping into Tony in the kitchen.
When Rhodes hands him the things, Tony smiles- the real, genuine kind that the world was too cruel to show often- and then smirks.
"Wow, honey. This is basically a marriage proposal," he jokes, as he sets them down on the kitchen island, and runs his finger over the piece of tape, feeling the change in material from the coarser paper and smoother plastic of the tape, until his finger feels sore. When he finally looks up, there are tears glistening in his eyes, and he looks at Rhodes, suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude that his best friend was there.
He contemplates going over to get a hug, when Rhodes closes the distance first, wrapping arms around Tony, bracing himself for the joke he knows is on the way.
"I haven't even said yes, and we're basically at second base," Tony quips, but it's not quite there. He instead hugs Rhodes back and lets his mask fall for a minute.
He closes his eyes and feels the hot tears run down his face, and in a watery voice, he admits, "I know you're my best friend, and I love you. But I miss him."
He's thankful that Rhodes knows him well enough to not suggest that he just call him if he missed him so much.
He moves the letter after that, from under the bobblehead to a locked drawer.
The phone was harder to deal with. That stupid fucking cell phone. Leave it to Steve Rogers to find the most ancient technology still existing on the planet.
With the letter, he had read it so many times he had it memorized, and now then locked it away, to prevent him from self-destructing over it. But with the phone, he didn't know what to do.
On the days where he felt calm after reading the letter, or empty at the vacancies in the compound, or sad from having to walk past Cap's uninhabited room every time he had to get to his ("Nice job, Tony, putting them right next to each other", he thinks), the phone is too tempting. To know that all he had to do was press one button and he'd get to hear Steve's voice, and get a little closer to healing, is too enticing.
But, on the bad days- the ones where he wants to shove tiny pieces of paper in Steve's ass- all he wants to do is put on a suit, fly to the highest possible point and drop the phone to the ground over and over again until it's shattered enough to accurately resemble the state of his heart.
He tried placing it in the drawer with the letter, but every time his hip accidentally bumped into the corner of the table, it would jostle the contents of the drawer, and he could hear the thunk of the phone as it rammed into the walls of his heart.
He shoved it into the back of his closet but soon found that he couldn't sleep, because he kept thinking he could hear the phone vibrating behind his shirts.
He even attempted to give it to Rhodes, hoping he'd keep it safe and out of his reach, but the Colonel simply told Tony to "deal with it like the man you are", and absolutely refused to take, what he described as, "an intimate object".
So, he's stuck with leaving it inside the clenched fist of a dummy Iron Man gauntlet sitting on a ledge in his lab, hoping he'd forget about it over time, and hoping the two devices would slowly fuse together and explode, just like everything else in his life.
Slowly, Tony realizes that he doesn't forget about it, but between immersing himself in upgrading Spider-Man's technology, figuring out ways to better Rhodes' legs to improve mobility and occasionally fighting off Secretary Ross' unyielding quest to find the missing Avengers, he realizes the pain slowly fades into his subconscious, and he finds it easier to deal with it every day.
But of course, some days are better than others.