We are just starting to close in on the end of this story. But, remember, this is just the first of 5 full parts that will carry us all the way to Endgame. So don't count me out yet! The three chapters after this one will be plot-heavy, so this one is plot-light and fluffy instead. It also gave me the chance to highlight a chronically underused character whose constant snark competition with Tony always makes me happy. But blink and you'll miss the crumbs I'm leaving for the future as well!

And since this one is a chapter about friends, I picked the best song about friends I know – "Power of Two" by the Indigo Girls.

I'm just gonna take this time to say thanks to all of you. This story has become my most…everything ever on AO3. Most read, most kudos, most comments, most bookmarked…and it's a little overwhelming. I wrote this story for myself, but it touches my heart to know that I wrote it for all of you without even realizing. So, to borrow from the theme song from this chapter, thank you for multiplying my joy in this story by the power of all of you!

Enjoy!


Chapter 15: The Treasures of Youth


Tony was impressed that he managed to avoid any real problems until most of the way through February. Babysitting a sick Peter Parker had been an eye-opener, and Pepper had laughed delightedly when he finally told her about his slightly terrible nursing skills aided by JARVIS's constant advice. She told him it was adorable and also that she was proud of him, and Tony wasn't sure that flailing about with chicken soup and movies warranted it, but he accepted it anyway. He also capitalized on it by treating her to a truly stupendous Valentine's Day.

And if Peter had made her a little card to send along and that went straight onto Pepper's dresser, well, it was just more proof that, finally, Tony was doing something right.

At the same time, he was regularly ignoring calls from Nick Fury these days. He'd sent the man all the schematics he'd asked for — something big about new helicarriers, apparently — and advised on some particularly specific questions about unbreakable encryptions, but that was it. Things must be hopping at SHIELD given how often he heard through the grapevine that Rogers and Romanoff had been on another mission.

But Fury apparently wanted Tony to come out of obscurity for some chessmaster-versus-the-world type reason and he made that point clear at every available opportunity when Tony took his calls. And that wasn't happening. So Tony stopped taking his calls altogether.

That was fair, right?

Also, he was pretty busy helping the kid prep his robot for the March science exhibition. Although Tony couldn't actually help build it or contribute anything to it directly, he could point Peter in the right direction, offer supplies and tools, and answer questions. The kid's project was going to blow everybody else out of the water — there was no doubt of it. But Tony wasn't one for leaving things to chance.

So he was spending a lot of time figuring out exactly how he could guide the kid to tweak his coding in ways that wouldn't be too advanced for someone like Peter (and thus get him accused of cheating) while still producing something far more sophisticated than anyone else his age. Especially those robotics club punks. Tony had even exposed some of the most rudimentary pieces of JARVIS's code for Peter to give him ideas — not telling him it was JARVIS, of course — and then sat back and watched the kid painstakingly follow the lines of commands to their purposes. Good thing Peter took excellent notes.

This code was going to be a commented-out monster when they were done, but Peter would have a grasp of coding bare-bones learning systems that surpassed some undergrads.

"Sir."

Tony was alone in the upper part of the workshop, so JARVIS addressed him verbally. "Yeah, J?"

"I believe you would like to be aware that you are about to have a visitor."

Tony glanced at the clock. "It's a little early for Peter to be getting out of school. Is he okay?"

"Not Mister Parker, sir. Colonel Rhodes's phone shows that he is headed in this direction, and his recent GPS search included this address."

"Rhodey? Why?" Tony frowned. "Something up?"

"I do not know, sir. Colonel Rhodes did not inform me of his trip."

"Great." Tony sighed. "Well, let's see what Pooh Bear wants when he gets here."

He didn't need to wait long. Within the hour, there was a knock at his door. "Come on in," he called.

Rhodey entered, looking very civilian in a winter jacket and jeans. "Hey, Tony."

"Didn't expect to see you here," Tony said, not looking up from the wiring that had been torn halfway out of a fan by the idiots on the second floor who had been here for less than a month and were already worse than the guy who still called Tony 'Luigi.' "Especially since I kind of gave orders that nobody was allowed to actually come here."

"Yeah, but, funnily enough, you can't really give me orders," Rhodey said. "You are not in my chain of command."

"I made your suit, so I probably should be," Tony replied.

"I'll draft a memo to Secretary Ross." Even as he said it, Tony could see Rhodey's face twist at the mention of the man who was his superior officer. Ross was the worst kind of politician — his interests began and ended with where he could get power and how he could use it. Most of the time, that had corresponded to non-terrible results for anybody besides himself. At least so far.

Someday, Tony had a feeling that was going to end. And Rhodey would be right in the cross-hairs. His position as liaison to SI had given him a lot of latitude, and the War Machine armor had given him even more, but in the end, Rhodey was still a member of military command structure. And he was not at the top. Ross could order him to...well, not anything, Rhodey would resign in disgrace before he betrayed his conscience, but there was a lot of gray area where Ross could cause problems for him.

But that was a problem for another day.

Rhodey stamped his boots to shake off the melting snow, glancing around. "Gotta be honest, when you went for the hermit look, I didn't expect it to be so familiar."

"Familiar how?" Tony asked. "And don't you dare walk in here with your wet shoes on. You know the rule."

Rhodey ignored that rule as he always had, running an idle hand along a shelf of random stuff. "I also know better than to walk around barefoot in one of your labs. Or are you forgetting the two-inch shard of something that ended up in my heel that one time?"

"First of all, I only made that rule because of getting nearly electrocuted when I ended up standing in a puddle — "

"It was your own puddle," Rhodey interrupted. "Some kind of spilled leftovers from one of your drunken fits of creative madness."

"Secondly," Tony refused to acknowledge that, true or not, "you are a grown man and you should watch where you step. Standard indemnity for liability applies, contact my legal department for all terms and conditions."

"I'll absolutely do that," Rhodey told him. "I bet I'm owed something for hazard pay just for walking in here."

"And, third, if you would actually use your sainted powers of situational awareness, you would see that my floor is clean."

Rhodey stopped the banter momentarily and looked down. When he looked up again, he was grinning. "Are you telling me that having a ten year old kid running around has finally gotten you to keep your damn space clean?"

"He's twelve," Tony said. "And, I mean, I know I'm rocking the crazy genius in a basement vibe here, but May is scary and she threatened me with severe bodily harm if he ever got hurt in here, so…"

"Where was that lady when we were at MIT?" Rhodey asked. "She could have saved me a lot of grief. You remember that time with the automated welding arm?"

"Nope, not a thing. Sure you're not suffering from some kind of head injury?"

Rhodey's expression was sly. "So you're saying you don't remember how you were coding after four days of no sleep and the lab you'd taken over was basically a junkyard?"

"Not ringing a bell."

"And you don't remember me and everybody else you were speaking to at that point — wait, no, that means it was just me…"

"To be fair," Tony put in, "I'm still not speaking to most anybody from back then. Just you, for some reason."

"...Warning you that your souped-up welding rig was going to get too hot for the materials you used to construct it and it was going to fail spectacularly and probably while on fire? And then it did?"

Tony scowled. "Whatever you're implying definitely never happened outside of an NDA agreement."

"I never signed one," Rhodey said. "I actually remember ripping it up and setting that on fire, too."

Tony glanced over at the nearest interface. "JARVIS, remind me to send Rhodey a new NDA for everything covering our entire time of being vaguely affiliated."

"Very good, sir," JARVIS said, and Tony could almost feel his AI rolling his eyes.

"Aw, that's not a nice thing to say about your best friend," Rhodey pouted. "'Vaguely affiliated' sounds like some kind of sports team making a deal with a local bar. Is that what decades of friendship have brought us to?"

"I mean, sports bars have snacks and I don't see you rolling up with a bowl of chips and salsa for me." Tony shot back.

That did it. Rhodey's face bent until he just laughed.

Tony grinned. Rhodey didn't let go often — he liked making Tony work for getting a genuine response out of him and not just more layers of snark and sarcasm. It was a push-pull between them that went back to the very beginning. Insults were a language they shared, especially in moments of ease and safety.

And in moments of crisis or doubt? Tony had never really been a cry-on-anybody's-shoulder kind of person, but if he had to choose someone, it would always be Rhodey. Because Rhodey had seen him at his absolute lowest. Had seen him on the edge of madness. Had seen him steeped in his darkest sins. And Rhodey had stayed.

But that did not mean that he needed to stay right now.

"Anyway, tell me why you're here so you can leave."

"Not feeling the love right now," Rhodey said as he finally chose Peter's stool to sit on. "Can't a guy want to catch up with his best friend?"

That got Tony's full attention. "No."

"No, what?" But Rhodey was smirking.

"No. Absolutely not. Get your narrow butt out of here before Peter sees you."

"What's so wrong with him seeing me?" Rhodey asked. "Are you ashamed of our friendship, Tony? After all our years together? All the times I pulled your fat out of the fire, sometimes more than metaphorically? That welding one isn't even the only one from that month."

Tony glared at him. "You're here to give me a hard time. I should engulf you in a suit and dump you in the Catskills like the mob hitmen do when River Patrol is on high alert."

Rhodey blinked. "I...am a little disturbed you know that, honestly."

He shrugged. "I thought everybody knew that. I mean, it's a logical course of action. Especially after Fresh Kills got the ultimate makeover."

"Anyway," Rhodey said. "Pepper got to meet the kid. Nat got to meet the kid. I can forgive you about Pepper, but Nat? Seriously?"

Tony crossed his arms. "Romanoff was doing an undercover job for me."

"I could have done it."

"Yeah, no. Literally everybody knows who you are."

"I could grow a beard. It worked for you."

Tony scoffed. "You don't have the face for it. You'd look like a billy goat."

"Okay, now I'm hurt." Rhodey rocked back on Peter's stool with a hand pressed dramatically to his chest. "Just for that, I'm not going to leave here today until I get to meet the kid."

"You're going to blow my cover," Tony said, getting very irritated and also increasingly aware of the time.

"Nah. Pepper says you told the kid that she worked for SI doing events or something. And I show up to a lot of SI events. So we could be friends." He seemed pretty pleased with his reasoning.

"Or," Tony said, "we could stop being friends altogether if you try it."

Even as he said it, he didn't mean it. And he knew Rhodey knew it. Rhodey was a constant in Tony's life, an anchor. Family. He would have to do something ten times worse than Obadiah ever had before Tony would ever doubt him or turn his back on him.

"Aw, come on. Can you blame me for being curious?"

"Always."

"Look, give me two minutes. I'll pretend to be leaving. You fixed my...something. I won't hang around." The teasing fell from Rhodey's face. "I just want to meet him."

Tony blinked. "Why?"

Rhodey gave him the look he usually did when Tony was being an idiot. It was a look Tony had seen a lot in his life. "You really think I was kidding about him being basically my nephew?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I'm not." Rhodey's eyes had gone serious. "He obviously means a lot to you, Tony. More than you try to let on. And if I don't miss my guess, you're planning for him to be a permanent resident in your life."

Tony had no argument for that.

Rhodey nodded even though Tony hadn't agreed out loud — he didn't need to for Rhodey to hear it. "So it matters to me because he matters to you. Anyone that important to you becomes a priority for me, too."

Tony let out a breath. "This is a bad idea. Even if Peter doesn't figure it out, I'm never going to hear the end of it. And he might figure it out with you here. If he weren't so blindly trusting, he probably would have by now."

"But he does trust you, so he won't," Rhodey said. "And I won't give him reason. I just want to meet him. Two minutes. Promise."

"I am going to regret this," Tony said, rubbing at his face. "I am going to regret this and then I'm going to make you regret this."

"Sir," came JARVIS's voice, softer than usual. "Mister Parker has returned from school and is currently changing out of his school clothes into more casual attire. Given recent patterns of homework, I surmise you have fewer than thirty minutes before he will be down for a visit."

Tony groaned. "Fine. Rhodey, gimme your phone charger. I know you got one on you. Preparedness and all that."

Rhodey frowned, perplexed, but drew a charging cord from his coat pocket. "Uh, why?"

"Gimme."

Rhodey sighed, but stood up and dropped the cord next to Tony with a raised eyebrow.

(Rhodey was one of very, very few people in the world who could hand Tony anything without him recoiling, but the fact that he didn't meant something about what Rhodey thought Tony needed right now, and that was a level of introspection he just didn't have the time to care about.)

Tony looked at the charger, then gave it an unforgiving yank until the wires at one end were exposed and frayed.

"Hey!"

Tony grinned at him over the now-ruined charger. "You said you came here for me to fix something. Obviously I needed something to fix. Now sit down and behave."

Rhodey said something rude under his breath, but returned to the stool. "You are actually the worst. How do I keep forgetting this?"

"My charming personality and sparkling wit," Tony said without looking up. "Wire stripper?"

Rhodey looked around; even knowing Tony as long as he did, it took a while to identify the tool in the mess of a workshop. When he did find it, he tossed it rather than handing it over.

But Tony was ready for that and caught it out of the air. "Thanks."

"Hey." That was soft, and it made Tony pause his work. He met Rhodey's eyes and was surprised to see the Rhodey-won't-say-anything-but-he-actually-loves-you-look that he had also seen a lot in his life. "Don't worry."

"Huh?"

"I'm not gonna hurt the kid, Tony. I'm not gonna scare him off or make it tough on you. I know you hate sharing your toys, and you hate it even worse when it's something you really care about. But Peter Parker will be safe with me. You have my word."

Tension drained out of Tony's shoulders. How does he always know what I need to hear? But there was nothing to say to that besides, "Fine."

He turned his full attention back to the fan, leaving the ruined, soon-to-be-fixed charger until he needed it as a cover and tried to ignore the leap of nerves in his chest.

His worlds were colliding again. This was fine. Really.

And deep down, not only did he know it would be fine, but he was looking forward to it probably more than Rhodey. Not that he'd ever tell Rhodey that.

They waited for Peter's arrival in comfortable silence.

"Mister Parker is on his way down," JARVIS said finally.

"Call me Mario," Tony said suddenly, setting the fan aside and picking up the cord at last. At Rhodey's look, he shrugged. "Mario is what everyone calls me except those I really...anyway. It's part of the cover."

"Got it." Rhodey pulled out his phone and started scrolling, affecting boredom.

The familiar tap on the door came a minute later. "Mister Carbonell?"

"Hey, kid. Come on in. Got a visitor who was just about to leave," Tony called back, and he hoped his voice didn't sound as strained as it felt. Though if strained from nerves or excitement, he didn't really know.

Peter stepped into the workshop, his cheeks pink from the cold February air but his eyes bright and clear. "A visitor?"

"He knows P-Pat. Miss Pepper," Tony said, only briefly stumbling over Pepper's fake name. "From work. And broke something while he was passing by, apparently, and she sent him over."

Rhodey leaned around one of the loaded shelves for a good look. "Uh, hi," he said, managing to sound awkward, as if caught out.

Peter stopped inside the door and blinked. Blinked again. His eyes got wider and wider.

"Ohmygosh," he whispered in a rush of air. "You're...you're…"

"Yeah, don't spread it around," Rhodey said. Then he flashed a smile. "Nice to meet you."

"I...oh…" Peter started forward, realized he was still in his coat and boots and that Tony had a very strict no-wet-things-beyond-this-point policy, so he stripped the coat off and tossed it in a corner before basically falling out of his boots.

"Need some help there, kid?" Tony asked, enjoying every moment of Peter's awkward hero worship. Frankly, Rhodey deserved the admiration.

"No, I'm okay. I...uh." He gulped and stared at Rhodey. "I'm Peter. Peter Parker. Mister Colonel, sir."

Rhodey chuckled and held out a hand. "You can just call me Rhodey. Or Jim. Like my friends do."

Tony snorted, knowing Peter's automatic response.

"Oh, no! That would be so rude!" He shook Rhodey's hand almost reverently. "I...is it okay if I just call you Colonel then? Or would you prefer Mister Rhodes? Mister Johnson who used to live next to us was a veteran and he hated it when I called him Sergeant at first but I didn't entirely understand why. I think he didn't want to think about the army anymore or something. So..." He trailed off.

"Colonel is fine," Rhodey said. "And I appreciate you respecting what others need to be comfortable, but I promise it wouldn't be rude for you to call me Jim or Rhodey."

Peter's face was getting redder than it had been from the cold and he shook his head hard, damp hair flopping about. "No, sir. I have War Machine models on my desk," he said. "It's rude and even if it wasn't, it would be too weird." Then he realized what he'd said and gulped.

Rhodey laughed. "So you like War Machine better than Iron Patriot too?"

"Uh, yeah! It's way cooler!"

"That's what I'm talking about," Rhodey said. And he offered Peter a fist-bump. Tony thought the kid might hyperventilate before they finished it.

Peter drew in a deep breath. "Mister...I mean, Colonel, sir, would it be okay if I asked you a question?"

"Of course."

Peter twisted his fingers together in front of his chest, drawing in a deep breath.

"I know you get asked this a lot, but I just…"

"It's okay," Tony said, already knowing exactly what Peter was going to ask, and it made his chest ache where the arc reactor had been.

Rhodey flashed Tony a knowing look, too, but just waited.

Peter dropped his hands and squared his shoulders. And when he looked up at Rhodey, there was something new in his face. A stubborn hope, a determined wish, and the courage to face a difficult answer. Tony saw it, and was reminded that Peter was more than just a cute, smart kid. He was brave, too. And strong. Strong in ways Tony barely understood.

(Later, he would have JARVIS send him a screenshot of that expression on Peter's face. Tony would download it and keep it close. He didn't know why, but he knew that he saw something there, something with power, something that would come into its own one of these days.)

"It's been more than a year," Peter said. "And nobody really knows what happened to Mister Stark or if he's still alive somewhere. I mean, some people think he's alive but nobody's sure. And you're his best friend, so I thought...you probably know." He swallowed. "If you can't tell me, I understand. But I...I would really like to know if he's okay."

"No matter what I tell you," Rhodey said, shooting a lightning-quick glance at Tony, "you can't tell anyone else. You know that, right, Peter?"

"Yes, sir." And Peter gave a solemn nod. "It's not...I don't want to know so I can put it on the internet or tell anybody."

"Why do you want to know, then?" Rhodey asked. "Just out of curiosity."

"Mister Stark saved me when I was little," Peter said. "And...he helped me learn how to be brave. And that it was okay to be smart even if I wasn't big or strong or good at sports."

"He's your hero," Tony found himself saying in a voice that cracked.

Peter nodded, still flushed. "And if he doesn't want to be Iron Man anymore, that's okay. But Mister Stark was...a lot more than just Iron Man. And...it would be nice if-if wherever he is, he was doing something that made him happy."

"And if he's dead?" Rhodey asked softly.

Peter sniffed hard and Tony knew he was fighting his own emotion. "Then I'd like to know that, too. I...I would like to remember him and light a candle for him and stuff. Like we did with my Uncle and my parents."

Tony was so close to tears he almost lost it, but Rhodey, as always, saved him. Rhodey climbed off the stool and moved so Peter couldn't see Tony at all around him, leaning down to Peter's height.

"It's a special person who cares more about Tony Stark than Iron Man, and who puts his happiness first." And Rhodey's voice was a little wobbly, too. "I've known him most of my life, and I can tell you, not nearly enough people see that. See Tony for the person who deserves to be happy, not Iron Man the big shot."

Tony bit the inside of his cheek because it was either that or he was going to give everything away right this second.

"Tony Stark is alive," Rhodey said. "He's alive, and he's probably the happiest he's ever been in his life."

And Peter let out a little sound that was part sob and part relief. "Oh, I'm so glad." He sounded like he was crying now, and Rhodey put an arm around him. "I'm so glad he's okay, Colonel, sir. I'm...I'm sure you miss him a lot, but I'm...I'm so glad."

"Me, too, Peter," Rhodey said, but now that he had Peter turned away, his eyes were all for Tony who could feel that his own face was a mess.

"I'm sorry I got so upset," Peter said, hauling in a shaky breath and rubbing at his face. "I didn't mean to. But...Mister Stark died right before my Uncle, and…"

"You don't have to explain it," Rhodey said. "Honestly, it's good that you care so much about him. I think he'd like to know he has somebody like you out there pulling for him."

Peter clearly didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded. "I promise I won't tell anybody what you said or even that you were here, Colonel, sir. And I'm sorry for crying on you."

"Hey, Underoos," Tony said, and it sounded normal to his ears and he could only hope his face was back under control. "Don't worry about that. Rhodey's good with people getting weird at him."

"I've had practice," Rhodey said in return. And Tony could see that his best friend was trying to be his usual deadpan self, and he was struggling.

Tony could also see that Rhodey had just fallen under the spell of Peter Parker as irrevocably as Tony had. Dear god it was so easy to love this kid.

So Tony just let himself enjoy the fact that his people were finding one another, and coiled up the now-fixed charging cord. "Anyway, this is all set."

"Thanks for that, uh, Mario," Rhodey said, getting the name right at the last moment. "I really didn't have time to go back for another one with traffic the way it is."

"Any time," Tony said, "not that I expect you around here very often." And he added an expectant look that he knew Rhodey would get.

Rhodey nodded. He turned to Peter. "Time for me to head out. But it was really nice to meet you, Peter."

"Oh, Colonel, sir, it was amazing to meet you, and if I could tell my friend Ned about it, he would go nuts, but I can't so I won't. But, just...thank you for telling me about Mister Stark. And, uh." He paused. "Thank you for your service, sir. Not just as War Machine, but...my uncle told me how important it is to respect servicemen and women. And...I wanted you to know. Since probably people mostly talk to you about War Machine and not being a pilot. So thank you."

Tony saw that line land itself in Rhodey's heart like an arrow and smirked. Yup, Rhodey was a goner just like Pepper. Someday, Tony was going to turn Peter loose on the world and thus usher in a new era of peace for all humankind. And then he could start on the wider universe.

Why should aliens be any more immune to his superpower than humans, after all?

Rhodey held out a hand for Peter to shake, then hauled him in for a hug. "Thank you, Peter Parker."

"What for?" Peter asked, surprised.

Rhodey glanced at Tony, then smiled at the kid. "You're doing a lot of good in the world too, even if you don't know it. Like Mario over there. He's a lot less grouchy these days."

"I resent that," Tony said. And the humor of their banter gave him back the control he needed.

Rhodey ignored him. "Thank you for believing in Tony Stark, and for caring about him. And for being so nice to me when I came and crashed your time here with Mario. Hopefully I'll get the chance to hang out with you someday."

That left Peter starstruck and stammering. Rhodey waved to Tony. "Later, man. Don't be a stranger."

"Have a good time saving the government from themselves," Tony shot back.

After the door shut behind Rhodey, Tony stretched, banishing the last of his emotion with a will. "You okay, kid?"

Peter turned and his face morphed from a mess of rapid-fire feelings and hero-worship into a sun-bright grin. "I am great, Mister Carbonell!"

Tony could only grin back. "Good to know. Now, let's get to work. It's only a few weeks to the exhibition and your bot isn't going to win on its own."

But when Peter took his usual place at the table, Tony reached over and squeezed his shoulder. He couldn't say any of the things in his head, and even less could he put words to the ones in his heart, but he hoped someday Peter would know they were there.