Laughing maniacally, Tony swooped clean through the ceiling and wound up in the common area just seconds ahead of Natasha, who dropped into a classic 'superhero landing' pose.

"Not fair!" said Tony in a mock pout. "You had a more dramatic entrance than me, and that's just not allowed."

Natasha pretended to toss her hair back over her shoulders. "Oh really? You were here first, so I suppose that makes us even."

"Fiiiiiiiiiiine," Tony whined, but the casual grin on his face gave away his amusement. "Rhodey should be closest one to us. And if I know Rhodey, he's either in his room, in the gym, lurking in his office, or isn't even here. This way!"

Natasha followed Tony to his best friend's suite and despite knowing exactly where it was and which walls that they had to pass through, they floated through the halls of their former home as if they were walking through it on a normal day. She could see that he was vibrating with excitement and didn't want to spoil the moment for him, so she simply trailed along. Tony paused outside the door. And there it was, the moment of truth. All he had to do was step through the door.

"You don't have to knock anymore, you know," murmured Natasha, who wasn't entirely sure of what to do.

Tony snorted but shuffled forward hesitantly. He looked back over his shoulder and said, "You don't have to stick around for this, even if you think you owe it to us. I'll meet you in the gym at sunset, which should be in a few. Maybe you'll find-" Tony paused, realizing that mentioning Clint and maybe falsely raising her hope wouldn't be a great idea. "Someone." But he knew that she had probably figured out what he was about to say, regardless. She nodded before turning away, and he would never ask whether that glittering sheen that he glimpsed in her eyes was tears threatening to fall.

Tony turned back around, took a deep breath, and stepped into Rhodey's room, just like when he had first entered their shared dorm room that first day at MIT.

And there he was, back turned to Tony and working at his desk, it's Rhodey. "So much damn paperwork," the man grumbled to himself. "Take care of the records, they said. It will be easy, they said."

For a moment, Tony just hovered there, transfixed and eyes watering. But the pure elation rushing through him took over and he rushed forward. "Rhodey!" Tony squealed like a toddler presented with a massive dessert carried in by a team of puppies just after being made to eat green beans.

He threw his arms around his friend, but was thrown off when his entire form passed through the man. Tony stumbled before stopping inside the middle of desk, upset but realizing his mistake. Rhodey looked up, and only for a moment he thought that maybe they had made eye contact. Maybe Tony had done a good enough job of sneaking up on him that he had caught his friend by surprise during a prank for the first time in years. Maybe they would both shriek, startled and then elated, before catching up on how Tony could break a few laws of nature and science and maybe he would truly return to life.

But then again, maybe's don't make the moon made out of cream cheese.

Rhodey pulled himself up from the chair and dropped his legs into two large footprints on the ground that looked like futuristic sandals without any straps. His partial nanotech exoskeleton formed around his legs in almost the blink of an eye, sending Tony into a trip down memory lane.

It was a few years after the snap, and Tony was up late tinkering in his garage at home. Pepper was asleep and he had put Morgan to bed a while ago. Tony looked over the designs for R-Exo Mark 11, named and designed for Rhodey. He had sped up the rate at which the nanobots assembled into the braces so that his friend wouldn't have to worry about falling over while putting them on. He still needed to add some finishing touches, namely a bunch of fancy gadgets and utilities that Rhodey would either exasperatedly and dramatically sigh or smile in appreciation at. Unfortunately, he was fresh out of ideas and energy but full of the urge to build something in a way that wouldn't wake Pepper up or burn down the house. Programming and testing nanotech qualified as both unless he wanted to work on making flamethrowers, which he didn't feel like doing that evening. He also didn't feel like explaining the inevitable chaos to Pepper if Morgan ever found one.

There was a soft shuffling noise coming from the cracked doorway, and he whipped around just in time to catch a glimpse of his daughter ducking out of sight. He thought about what to do next, settling on something fun and the opposite of what Howard Stark would have done: Open the door and play hide-and-seek.

"Was that a mouse?" he asked loudly. There was a giggle behind the door as he approached and slowly turned it open, giving Morgan a chance to duck behind a tall, ugly potted plant to his right that he hadn't yet talked to Pepper about getting rid of in favor of another bookshelf. He started searching for nothing in particular to his left.

"I sure hope there isn't a mouse sneaking into my garage looking for juice pops!" he whisper-yelled quietly, just enough to not wake Pepper and entertain Morgan. In the corner of his eye, he saw her tiptoeing into the garage, hopping down the steps, and disappearing from his line of sight entirely. Instantly he turned back and returned, scanning the room for all possible Morgan hiding spots. He was pretty sure she was in a conveniently located cardboard box which was still half-filled with styrofoam packing peanuts. She loved hiding in it, and thankfully most choking hazards like the little styrofoam monsters no longer freaked her parents out because Morgan was better than most kids her age at determining what objects qualified as food.

Tony spotted the lampshade and snuck up behind the box. "If I was a mouse, I'd be hiding in this box right here." To her credit, Morgan didn't giggle that time. Especially considering she wasn't even in the box, which Tony noticed much too late. Now he was silently freaking out because she was loose in the garage and had probably chosen a dangerous spot. He took a deep breath and resorted to parenting tactic number two: Bribery.

"Wow, the mouse is doing a great job at hiding. But I don't know if hiding mice get juice pops because they can't ask nicely to get them…" Tony said enticingly.

A moment later, a cabinet door hanging at about his freaking eye level swung open. "Daaaadeeeee, can I please have a juice pop?" Morgan sang, grinning at having evaded, startled, and partially tricked her father into offering treats. Tony ran a hand over his face and brought his daughter onto his back with a sigh. "Sure thing, kiddo. How did you even get up there?" he asked. He felt her shrug. "I climbed." Kids. He was pretty sure that they could teleport until they hit ten years old, and Morgan was no exception.

Five minutes later, Tony was showing Morgan the nanotech and listening to her ideas on cool stuff it could do for her Uncle Rhodey. Half of the suggestions were weapons of some kind, simply weren't possible, or just plain terrified him. Could he even make glitter bombs combined with a chemical that would subtly make people sneeze? Would Rhodey even like an automatic marshmallow shooter? And most importantly, how did she know how to spell napalm? But in the end, he was ready to incorporate quite a few of their traded ideas into the design, such as the beloved repulsor boots, a tool belt, emergency buttons, a small candy dispenser that didn't shoot the candy out, roller skates, and a gray camo pattern all over.

"The best part is that if Uncle Rhodey doesn't need one of these cool things, the nanobots in it go back to being parts of the whole thing." Tony explained. "And look at the time! You should be back in bed, sleeping so you're not tired tomorrow."

Morgan frowned, and for a second he thought she would protest. "It's missing something." she said, looking at the structure on the table. "You call Uncle Rhodey a plat-pus, right?"

"Yes, I call Rhodey a platypus."

"Can we put a plat-pus on it?"

"Yes, and I'm sure that he'll love it."

Rhodey thought it was funny that Morgan had been the one to suggest the cartoon platypus decal formed by the nanobots. There wasn't an override to that upgrade unless it was an emergency where they were needed elsewhere.

He wouldn't ever think of using it if it did exist, anyway.

As Tony was looking at the picture of the venomous mammal on his friend's left ankle, he was struck with an idea. Nothing cheered up his friend like a good, harmless prank, and if that didn't work, he'd maybe brighten at seeing that his paperwork was finished by the time he was done with his break. Tony hovered in a sitting position just above the seat of the chair and grabbed at a pen, but his hand swiped clean through it. He tried again, pouring concentration and deliberation into the action. No luck. He switched tactics, this time around appealing to the soul stone for help and magic. C'mon. This is for Rhodey. He's been with me since as long as I actually want to remember and I can help him out for what feels like the first time in forever.

A tingling spread from the center of Tony's body out to his hands, and he found that he could pick the pen up. Unfortunately, he couldn't make heads or tails of the complicated forms. Screw paperwork, no wonder he was grouchy over these things. In a last-ditch effort to surprise his friend, he asked for some help. Hey stone, where can I find an actual platypus? The same tingling feeling pulsed and disappeared, leaving him as tired as an insomniac koala. But nothing had happened.

"Really? All that for absolutely nothing? Stupid little-" Just as Tony was in the middle of complaining, there was a loud splashing noise coming from the bathroom. He quickly floated in, and spotted a platypus swimming happily in the toilet. He could swear that the little thing even winked at him before knocking into the side hard enough to drop the lid. There was no doubt in his mind that FRIDAY was alerting Rhodey to the strange noises in his room, but even she probably had no idea that it was a platypus. Now he had to just wait and see.

Author's Note: I think that this was one of the biggest chapters I've written. Hope you enjoyed it, and I might set up a regular updating schedule.