A couple people requested something to do with PTSD / panic attacks. The thing is, I want to use P for something else, and so I've decided to use this letter for prodding Tony's mental state instead.
IMPORTANT: SPOILER ALERT! THIS CHAPTER OFFICIALLY TAKES PLACE AFTER THE EVENTS OF CACW, NO LONGER AN AU LIKE THE REST OF THE FIC SERIES, so if you haven't seen it, don't read.
The rest of the fic series is AU just cuz Tony still has his reactor and Barton and Nat are together and all that jazz, and usually I do my own thing and ignore the overarching plots of the movies that create turning points, but this chapter is officially sticking to the script. The next chapters will NOT, they will go back to happy family! avengers.
Appropriately considering the events of CACW, Steve will not physically being appearing in this episode, only in thoughts.
MAJOR ANGST.
N for Nightmares
The suit was in full failure, the arc reactor in his chest plate fried beyond recognition. Every wire in his helmet was shorting, the electrical current biting into his neck wherever the frayed copper met flesh. Tony was hanging on for dear life, his suit becoming heavier and heavier by the second as his hydraulics failed – as his chances of survival dipped lower and lower. The cliff edge that he clung desperately to was beginning to give. The earth was crumbling.
He looked down between his feet, his neck craning over the confines of his suit, the mangled metal tearing at the vulnerable skin on his throat. He had to look down, he had to see.
Explosions. Fire. A seemingly endless fall that would surely obliterate him – he was inches away from a downward spiral into oblivion. He wondered for a moment if it would be the crash that would kill him or if the fiery blasts would boil him alive mid-air before he ever saw the ground. He really didn't know which one he preferred. All he knew is that this must be hell.
He tried again to pull himself to safety, sweat pouring from every gland, tears flowing freely down his face. His heart was hammering in his chest, his adrenaline spiking dangerously. He couldn't die, this couldn't be the end.
Blood oozed down his forehead and into his eyes, mixing with sweat and clouding his vision – blood? When did he cut himself? What happened? Tony couldn't remember being injured – hell, he couldn't even remember how he ended up here, holding onto rocks with an ever-stiffening metal gauntlet that refused to grip any tighter, never mind haul him upwards.
"H-Help! HELP!" Tony cried, his chin quivering as desolation set in. "SOMEBODY, P-PLEASE?!" Where was he – why was he alone in his suit? Was there a fight going on? Where was his team?
"…Tony?" he heard someone call. Immediately, his heart lifted. He recognized that voice. That voice would help him.
"STEVE!" Tony beckons, tears of relief now replacing those of anguish. "STEVE, HELP, DOWN HERE!" The Cliffside argues with his optimism,however, deciding to crumble further. Tony was minutes away from freefall.
The heavy footfalls of the soldier's boots came at a frustratingly slow pace. They grew nearer and nearer until Steve's head, followed by his torso, followed by his whole body, came into sight and loomed above Tony's slipping hands.
Steve was dressed for a fight, his Captain America suit and vibranium shield shining brilliantly amongst the fire and the filth. But…he was looking absolutely pristine. Tony, covered in grime and dirt and sweat, wondered how that could be. If they had been fighting something, why was Steve untouched?
"Wh-what's going on, Steve?" Tony looked like a small child – he certainly felt like one. "Help me, Steve. I'm going to fall!"
Steve crouched down, smiling too nicely, looking completely uninterested. "Sure thing, Stark." And he unfolded his hands from his chest, reaching them out to Tony.
Tony stared in horror. Steve's gloves were soaked in blood. The more he stared, the more they dripped. It was practically black, the blood was so dark. And there was so much – too much.
"Steve…" Tony's eyes were wide and frightened. "What…Who?"
"Oh, this?" Steve inspected his hands, lifting them to his face, watching with a nonchalant grin as the blood flowed from tips to elbow, coating his arms, staining his suit.
He lifted his left hand first.
"This? This is your mother's." He smiled. "And this one," his right hand wiggled gleefully. "This one's Howard's."
Tony let out a shocked sob, confusion and fear taking over.
"I knew the whole time, remember Tony? I knew how they died. I've been lying to you from day one." Steve's smile only grew.
The earth slipped more under the engineer's fingers.
"Steve, stop it! Help me up!"
"I don't think so, Tony."
The Cliffside was giving way fast, debris flying, rocks tumbling into the pit.
"STEVE, PLEASE!"
And then, the soldier laughed. He threw his head back and let out a gut-twisting sound that was full of hatred and bitterness. It wasn't Steve's laugh - Steve would never laugh like this.
"Oh, Tony. Don't you get it?" and he knelt down again. He picked up his shield, and Tony was transfixed as the coloring shifted. The blue drained away, seemingly peeling itself off the disc and slinking into the ground. The shield shimmered. The star sharpened its edges. The rings went away.
In the end, a silver shield with a single red star in the middle was held firmly in the hands of Captain America. His eyes were full of evil. His gaze was steel. The air around them went from blistering heat to an arctic cold. Ice crept along the ground, reaching Tony's hands. He felt he frost seep into his gauntlets and settle into his bones. His grip weakened further.
"I told you I'd be with you til the end of the line, Tony."
Steve leaned in closer to the dangling man's ears. Tony was whimpering, the wintery cold combining with his own fear to leave him a shaking, dangling mess.
"…And this is where it stops."
And without another word, Steve slammed his fist into the side of Tony's unmasked face, the force sending him reeling backwards into open air. His hands left their ledge, and he began to fall.
Tony screamed, desperately trying to get his thrusters to work, but the suit was dead. He was a flying pile of scraps.
The explosions surrounded him like a cocoon, blasting him through the air, the fire seared at his flesh, the hair on his head went alight and his limbs were being cooked in his metal shell. He tried to cry out but the heat stole the words from his mouth, searing the inside of his throat. His tongue swelled and burst, blistering as the black smoke filled every inch of space and air around him. He was falling…falling…never stopping, never dying, just falling. Steve's laughter was everywhere and nowhere all at once until finally Tony he couldn't see, he couldn't hear, and he couldn't breathe…he couldn't breathe…he couldn't-
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Tony shot upright in his bed, ripping desperately at his sheets, his shirt soaked with sweat, his lungs screaming for air, his whole body wracked with a phantom burning pain.
He flung himself to the floor, clawing at the carpet, his eyes filled with tears and sweat. He sobbed, his whole body shaking, his hands fisting into the duvet that he had dragged to the floor, trying frantically to ground himself.
"It's not real, it's not real…" he cried, rocking himself back and forth. His throat opened up and blissful air vacuumed its way into his body, his diaphragm trying fruitlessly to steady itself, to find its rhythm again. Reality sank back in after a few moments as the panic and confusions dissipated. There was no pit, no ledge, no fire. But there was Steve. And Bucky. Rhodey. His parents…those were all still there. It had all still happened. He didn't get to call those dreams.
He was in a ball, his knees drawn to his chest, his face planted in the rug. Tony Stark was sobbing – and not a manly, Hollywood sob. His mouth was open in an "O" as his chin dimpled and his whole body shook soundlessly. Drool and spit and tears and snot dripped into the floor. His face was crumpled, his skin red from the blood pooling in his head, and his chest felt ready to burst.
Tony Stark was sobbing. He was weeping. He was mourning.
He was mourning Steve, the loss of a friend. He was mourning Rhodey's legs, his old life. He was mourning his mother, hell he was even mourning his asshole of a father. He had lost so much – how was this fair? How was any of this fair? And how could Rogers side against him…
Tony let out a shaky breath and a few huffs, anger and hurt replacing his heart shattering sense of loss. He pounded his fist once, twice, against the floor. It hurt his hand. He liked it.
Again, he punched the floor from his fetal position. He liked the sound. He liked the way it stung his knuckles. He sat up slightly, knees still on the carpet but fists free to pound the carpet again.
Soon, the pain wasn't strong enough, so Tony moved to the hardwood. He punched it, again and again and again, until the floor was splintering and his knuckles were splitting. But even that wasn't good enough. The fire and rage built up inside of him until he picked himself up off the floor and ground his teeth, wailing into the drywall. His first hand put a dent the size of a plate into the wall, his left hand went straight through it.
Tony's fist connected with a structural beam on the other side of the plaster, and he felt his knuckles pop out, one by one, almost in slow motion. Each small bone dislocated on immediate contact, then broke and shattered with the further momentum into the beam.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Tony cried out, a fresh batch of tears stinging at his swollen eyes. But the pain was still good – it was real. This was all real.
He cursed more under his breath, his chest heaving and his whole body still shaking. He walked angrily to his bathroom, running his tattered knuckles under the water. He inspected his left hand. The skin was mangled clear to the wrist on the back of his palm, and the fingers themselves were oddly angled and already turning a deep shade of purple. Definitely broken.
"Dammit." Tony sighed, frustrated with himself and with…just, everything. "Dammit, dammit, dammit…"
Without another word, Tony wrapped his hand in a towel and went back to his main room. The alarm clock on his bed stand read 3:43 am.
Fuck it, never too early to start a day's work.
Besides, Tony doubted going back to sleep would do anything except cause more nightmares – or worse, a continuation of the one he'd just had. His hand needed attention anyways; and as much as Tony hated being fussed over, a hospital trip was required on this one.
He walked himself to the nearest E.R., sitting himself amongst the druggies and gangsters who usually came in this time of morning after a late night of shooting up and gang banging. Of course there was the occasional woman going into labor, or elderly man with "heart attack" symptoms (Tony thought it more likely just heartburn, based on the pulled-pork stains on the guys t shirt).
A nice nurse approached the billionaire about ten minutes after he had checked himself in at the front desk. She obviously recognized him – I mean, he was Iron Man- but Tony was grateful to notice that she didn't lose her sense of professionalism. She treated him with the proper amount of attentiveness, but nothing beyond that. She wasn't fawning over him. Maybe she wasn't even a fan.
Truth be told, the nurse's name was Cheryl, and what Tony Stark didn't know was that she had every poster of him and the Avengers available hanging up back in her apartment on 29th – but she had taken one look at the haggard, drawn, and deadened expression on her Idol's face and she realized…this was a broken man. She settled her own nerves and treated him like any other patient – he was obviously not in the mood for a photo-op.
She didn't bother asking him what happened. She had seen enough bloody knuckles to know the difference between a fistfight and a self-beating.
Cheryl made cheerful small talk as she dutifully sterilized, wrapped, and iced Tony's hands. She commented on the weather, the recent news reports about the stocks – she even told him about her sister's new baby. Tony smiled politely, true tenderness in his eyes, and asked its name.
"David," she told him. "My first nephew – born premature, the poor guy. Came in at a scrawny four pounds, smallest little thing I'd ever seen, but he's quite a fighter. Never gave up, even when the doctor's said he might not make it. He's three months, now, and bouncing around like you wouldn't believe, chubby legs and everything."
Tony watched the light in her eyes and the wholesomeness of her smile as she spoke of her family. He couldn't pretend to be really absorbing everything she was telling him, but he cared more about the way in which she told it.
His thoughts went to his own family. His parents…both gone. Had they ever spoken about me like that? He couldn't help but wonder. Had their eyes ever lit up at even the opportunity to brag about their son?
His mother's probably had. Tony could remember coming home from school after weeks away, looking for nothing more than a soft hug from Maria – the way all the worry in her face would melt the moment she laid eyes on her baby. But Howard?
Howard's eyes had only ever lit up on two occasions – one, when he'd invented something especially clever, or two when he was talking about a particular soldier…
"Do you know Steve Rogers?" Tony absentmindedly interrupted the nurse mid-sentence, but the woman took it in perfect stride. She heard the way that name caught in his throat.
"I know of him, yes. But…I would think that you know him better than me." She smiled sadly.
Tony sighed gently. "I would have thought so, too." And she watched his shoulders deflate ever-so-slightly.
"…Is it true, sir? What they said on the news? About him and Sergeant Barnes?"
"Yup."
"So they're gone?"
"Yup. And don't ask me where, because hell if I know."
Cheryl stopped her work to look up at him, her young blue eyes meeting his disillusioned brown ones. "…And are you going to be alright?"
Tony looked right back down at her, and she thought she saw something beautifully fragile flash inside his gaze, but it was gone too soon.
"You know, Cheryl, you're the first one to ask me that."
"Well, what's your answer?"
Tony laughed wryly. It was a bad laugh, a bitter one. "For the first time in my life, sweetheart, I don't have an answer."
After that, the two sat in silence. Cheryl hummed very quietly every few minutes as she completed some basic first aid and she stayed with him during his X-Rays even though she didn't have to. There was something about him that made her feel the need to stay at his side, even if she did nothing more than distract him.
At the end of it all, reaching around 5:00 am, Tony had three broken fingers and a compound fracture in his wrist. The dislocated fingers were popped back with a local anesthetic, but the breaks had to be cast. Everything was realigned and splinted by an orthopedic surgeon on call before the superhero was returned to Cheryl for some final touches.
"You know, Mr. Stark," she began quietly as she spread antibacterial balm onto his cuts. "I-"
"Please," his voice was slightly hoarse. "Call me Tony."
"Well, then," she smiled. "Tony." The balm stung Tony's hands, but he didn't even flinch. "I want you to know that I think you did the right thing. A lot of people think the same way. You were trying to be the good guy."
Tony looked down at his feet. "Steve…Steve isn't the bad guy."
Cheryl shifted her head, meeting his averting gaze. "I never said he was."
"I just thought that's what you-"
"No, Tony. It's not my place to pass judgement." Here words were firm and straightforward, but there was no fire or cynicism behind them. She was simply being honest. Tony liked that. "It's easy for us regular people to sit down here in our little houses and judge – to say that we would do things differently, or we would pick our own sides." She tightened a bandage methodically. "But if it were my friend? My brother? I…I don't know what I would have done."
"The way I see it, Sir, you had a decision to make based on what was presented to you. You had facts to go off, hard evidence. I might just be a nurse, but that still makes me a woman of science. You're an engineer. We both like the numbers, the odds. We both see statistics we don't like each and every day, and we get to choose how we react to them. The difference is, I don't have to make the call when it's someone's time to pass on – that's for the doctors. And I see what it does to them. They try so hard to save someone, and they die anyway. You," she tightened the other hand's wrappings, "are responsible for thousands of people at once, sometimes millions. You save as many as you can, but it's always the ones you can't save who you remember, who you get blamed for. Captain Rogers seems like the kind of man who prefers to focus on the ones you did save – he prefers those odds. You prefer to look at the same statistics and see only room for improvement – that's why you're a good inventor."
Tony stared at her, slightly without words. This was just an innocent, twenty-something girl, picking through his brain after knowing him for an hour and a half.
"So, I'm the pessimist and Steve is the optimist?"
She laughed slightly. "I suppose, if that's how you want to look at it." She paused. "But I think I see it more as a Ying and Yang partnership. You can't have one without the other. You may be the genius on the team, Mr. Stark, but Steve is the real brains of the operation."
Tony chuckled, and put a bandaged hand to his heart, feigning injury. "You calling me stupid, Cheryl?"
"No, Mr. Stark." She gave him a kind smile with eager eyes. Her petite hands patted his arm gently. "I'm calling you the heart." The smile faded from her face. "You feel everything they feel. You take too much onto your own shoulders. You lighten the load for the rest of your team, and for the rest of the world, but you will drown in it all if you don't accept that there are just some people who you don't get to save."
Tony blinked. He blinked again. "…How old are you?"
This time, Cheryl laughed outright, quietly slapping her knees and getting up from her seat. Her curly brown hair swinging from her tidy ponytail. "You're a renowned ladies' man, Mr. Stark. You know you should never ask a woman her age." She filled out a few things on his chart. "You are free to go, Tony. Please refrain from punching hard surfaces in the future – or at least for the next 4-6 weeks."
He gave a clumsy salute with his bandaged hands. "You got it, Nurse."
And with that, Tony left St. Mary's. He awkwardly pulled out his phone from his pocket to check the time. It was quarter after five. A few weeks ago, Tony would have to worry about Barton and Natasha getting up in two hours and pestering him about the bandages on his hands. He would have had to come up with an excuse to get Steve to stop fussing over him, and to make Bruce stay away from his medical records.
But that was a few weeks ago. the Tower was empty. That family was gone.
Now, it was only him and Rhodey. The fallen pilot was still living in his Stark apartments, full accessibility and private physical therapy studio all included– it was pretty luxurious to be honest, but Tony owed him that…that and so much more.
With his phone in hand, Tony quietly called up FRIDAY.
"Fry?" Tony incanted casually as he strode down the pre-dawn sidewalk of New York.
"Good morning, Sir. Did you enjoy your stay at the Hotel du E.R.?"
"Don't give me that sass."
"No sass intended sir, I simply wanted to inquire as to whether there was something that perhaps you preferred in a hospital bed over your own twenty thousand dollar imported, king sized sleeping arrangements at home."
"Watch yourself. I can change your code in less than a second."
"If I believed that, Sir," the AI's Irish Accent adding to her level of attitude, "I would stop being any fun."
Tony had to chuckle. "Well, you've got me there." He stopped at a crosswalk, checking in both directions before blatantly jaywalking in the red light of the "DO NOT WALK" signal.
"Fry, I need you to do me a favor. Check St. Mary's employee records. Find a young, brunette Nurse, first name 'Cheryl'. She has a sister with a brand new son – premature birth and all that, probably a mountain of medical bills." He paused his speaking, waiting for the search to complete. His stroll remained casual.
"Yes, Sir. Cheryl Whitley, RN; Sister Valerie Brino, previously Valerie Whitley, Elementary School Teacher; Spouse: Michael Whitley, Social Worker. Exactly $34,650.43 in unpaid medical expenses to the New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital. Patient: David Matthew Brino."
"That's the one." Tony continued walking. "Pay those."
"Done, Sir."
"Good, now put fifty thousand dollars into a college fund for the kid –make sure to send an invoice to the parents in the morning."
"Anything else, Sir?"
"Can you find the exact address for Cheryl through her employee records at the hospital?"
"Sir, you know I can. Her address is-"
"No, I don't need to know. Just pay her rent for the rest of the year, will you?"
"The landlord will get a check in the morning, Cheryl will get a copy to prove payment."
"Good girl, FRIDAY."
"If I may ask, Sir, why the sudden charity?"
"She reminded me of my mom, Friday." Tony sighed. "And I miss my mom."
When Retired Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes woke up that morning just before 8, he yawned and flexed his arms above his head, stretching. He shifted his waist, and pulled the sheets back with his groggy hand.
Then he went to kick the comforter off his feet.
Nothing happened.
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Soon, he told himself. Soon he would stop doing that. It was going to take him a while to adjust, the doctors had said. After forty-some-odd years of certain habits, it would take a while to adjust to not being able to move his legs. To get accustomed to being…well…
He sat upright, supporting his core with his arms behind him, he reached down, the soreness in his back from yesterday's physical therapy a gentle reminder to take it east. He pulled the blankets away from his legs, exposing the cotton pajama pants that he couldn't feel as well as the calve muscles that he couldn't even recognize.
James Rhodes had spent his whole adult life in the military. He had always been fit. Running, jumping, drilling – Tony had always teased him about his lithe frame, but the truth was, he had been strong. Lean and mean and a fighting machine….a War Machine...The War Machine.
Now…He looked back down to his ankles, just visible beneath the hem of his pants. They were skinny and wane from disuse. Tony's bionic legs had done wonders for his mobility and confidence now that he was finally getting a hang of them, but the muscles in his legs, his own independence…he knew it would never be the same.
He gave himself a mental slap in the face. Come on, Soldier.
He picked up his legs, one at a time, and swung them to the side of the bed. He grabbed his handrails, scooted himself seamlessly into his bedside wheelchair, and glided to the bathroom. Weeks of practice had made this morning routine less of a humiliating, pitiful struggle and more of a daily chore.
He got himself washed, dressed, and ready to go. He moved back to his bedroom and went through the process of strapping himself into Tony's invention. Within minutes, the ergonomic and well-designed legs had him rising slowly to his own feet, and he grabbed his cane for the extra support. Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes walked himself out of his apartments.
He was not surprised to see Tony already awake and cooking breakfast in his kitchen. Rhodey knew that Tony was lonely these days, and they were really all that the other had right now. What Rhodey was surprised to see were the bulky bandages and thickly splinted hand.
"Tony, what…?" He rolled his eyes, exasperation clear in his voice. This is why they were friends. Rhodes wasn't going to coddle him. He was gonna scold the shit out of him and tell him to get his head out of his ass. "What the hell did you do this time?"
The engineer, a bagel sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and a precariously balanced coffee mug in his non-splinted hand, gave a muffled answer.
"What? Man, chew your damn food."
Tony rolled his own eyes, poured the coffee into two mugs without spilling too much, and ripped the offending bagel out of his mouth.
"I said," he chewed slightly. "I got into a fight with a wall and the wall won."
Rhodey saw the protective layer of humor Tony was building up. There really was no point, since both men had the same defense mechanisms and saw clear through each other's – but they had a habit of humoring one another.
"Damn, you got your ass kicked by a wall? No wonder Steve pounded you into the dirt."
"Ouch!" Tony exclaimed, laughing harshly, but a genuine smile playing at his mouth. "Too soon, pal, too soon."
"You're right, that was in poor taste. I apologize, Mister Stank."
"Would you stop it with the Stank thing? That postman was senile!"
"Whatever you say, Mister Stank."
"I don't know why we're friends." Tony shot back, even while placing a fresh omelet down on the table in front of James.
"Because, Stank, nobody but me will tolerate you." Rhodey retorted wittily, shoveling the eggs into his mouth. He was, um, interrupted by their flavor. "Mmm, Tony - you still haven't learned to cook."
"Shaddup and eat it, I'm 95% sure it won't cause any damage."
"Fair enough."
The two ate in silence, Tony occasionally chuckling to himself because Rhodey was right, this omelet was pretty bad, but not terrible. Finally, they sipped their last cups of coffee and Tony cleared the dishes, placing them neatly into the automated dishwasher.
Rhodey's humorous tone was put to bed as he looked his friend over with scrutiny. Tony looked terrible – unslept, unkempt, malnourished. Even the bags under his eyes had bags.
"Tony," He called. The engineer stopped abruptly, hearing the softness and the shift in his friend's voice. His pause lasted only a second, then he continued to stack dishes.
"What?" he was trying to sound nonchalant, but there was an edge to his reply. He didn't want this conversation to happen.
"What actually happened to you? Because I know when you're downplaying. I also know what you look like when you haven't slept for a few days – and I also know that that omelet you just ate was a fraction of the size of mine, and probably the first real food you've had in the past 24 hours." Rhodey pushed his coffee to the side. "It's just you and me, now, man. You need to talk to me."
Tony didn't say anything for a long time, but he kept replaying the words that Cheryl had muttered to him this morning. If he didn't share the load, he would drown in it.
"Rhodey, I…" his throat tightened. Images of himself, falling downwards into a hell on earth. Steve laughing. His parents' blood.
Then came the real images. Steve and Barnes, wailing on him from either side, their punches blending together until Tony felt like he was being attacked from every angle. The repulsor blast, the shield, the blood, the pain, the tears, the hurt, the snow, the dark, the…
….the abandonment.
"Rhodey …" the lump continued to build until his eyes spilled over, his back to the pilot but his body posture speaking volumes. Tony felt small. "N—never mind, I'm fine, I just haven't been sleeping well. I think I need a new mattress, my, uh, the one I have now is terrible."
"Bullshit. We both know your mattress cost more than a small boat." But Rhode's voice quickly went from sassy to apprehensively gentle. "Tony, is this about Rogers?"
That was all it took. The engineer's hands went from busying themselves in the dishwasher to going out on either side of him to grip the counter softly. He took a deep breath.
"I don't wanna talk about it right now, Rhodes."
"Too bad, cuz that's what we're gonna talk about."
"James."
"Anthony."
They held their own silences with discipline, but eventually Tony gave in. He spoke first, his voice quiet.
"..I just…I thought…Steve…" He swallowed. "I know we fought…and…didn't agree all the time, but…" the images of the nightmares returned, flickering behind his eyelids. Steve, laughing, throwing him to his death. Tears welled in his eyes, but somehow the engineer's voice remained fairly steady. "I never thought…this…not this."
Rhodey sat back in his chair. "Tony-"
Tony held up his hand. "-No, I just… Barton, too. Natasha left soon after and….Wanda, everything she had to go through...now they're all scattered to the wind like a bunch of vigilante outlaws, and...and that Parker kid almost got killed because I...Its all my fault, Rhodes. Everything. Steve-"
"-No, Tony," Rhodes leaned forward again. "You don't have that on you. Your teammates chose their own sides, you didn't choose for them." Rhodes paused. "And Steve didn't just leave you behind, Tony. He made a choice to leave everything behind. He chose Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, the original Howling Commando, his oldest friend, his Brother in every regard except blood. He chose his Family."
"I know he did. Barnes was all he had left, but…Rhodey, Barnes killed Howard; he killed my mother. He…" the tears were flowing faster now. "He murdered her. In cold blood. He took her away from me, my family. And then, flash forward forty goddamn years, and like a sick, broken record, Barnes does it all again – takes my family away from me again!"
Tony's voice shifted from mournful to menacing as his words built up in a fury. His hands were balled into painful fists, the stitches and bandages starting to crack as fresh blood sprouted against the starched white linen.
"Steve? The Avengers? You?! This is all the family I have left in the world! But I never get to be happy, I never get to keep my family. Tony Stark isn't good enough to deserve happiness. So I lost it, let it run right by me- and not only did I let it slip through these goddamn, useless fingers," he glared haphazardly to his hands, now waving in front of him. "But I let him break it apart. It's broken! BROKEN! I AM BROKEN!" he pounded his own chest, his voice cracking slightly. "THE TEAM IS BROKEN, MY LIFE IS BROKEN, YOU ARE-" Tony was yelling by the end of his outburst, but he stopped himself before he could finish that last sentence. He froze, immediately looking ashamed.
"James…I…" Tony was small. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"
"Tony…" Rhodes eyes flashed with pain. He didn't know what to say. "Tony, sit down."
Tony closed his eyes, sounding more like a child. "I don't wanna sit down."
"Sit. Down." Rhodes lifted an eyebrow. "because otherwise I have to stand up to look you in the eye, and that requires a hell of a lot more effort than you walking across this goddamn kitchen with your fully functioning legs and planting your pasty, Italian ass in that chair."
Tony's teary eyes grew wide, but he acquiesced. Rhodes had his commander voice on, now. He knew there was no point in arguing.
Rhodes could see clearly that his friend was hurting. The physical wounds from the fight with Rogers healed up within a week or so, even the more severe ones had mended cleanly. But now…now the pilot saw that the scars ran much deeper.
The Lieutenant Colonel cleared his throat.
Here goes nothing.
"Tony, did you know that Sam Wilson and I became really good friends over these past few years?"
Tony sniffled quietly, giving Rhodey a slightly puzzled look. "Okay..?"
"Sam and I, both soldiers, both black soldiers, live every day surrounded by a bunch of crazy white people with superpowers who run around saving the world in their spare time. Wilson and I? We have skills, sure, but we aren't demigods! We don't have your brain. We don't have Steve's serum. We can't just get a little pissed and level a city. We don't have Natasha's killing skills, and we certainly didn't have Barton's sex drive." Tony gave a startled chuckle. Rhodes smiled gently. "Tony, you have no idea how many times we went out, just the two of us, sharing our own private jokes and making fun of you idiots."
Tony shook his head, a wry smile threatening at the corners of his grim mouth. "Is this supposed to cheer me up?"
Rhodey laughed to himself. "No, the point is…well, hell, the point is, Sam and I had a lot more in common than I do with even you. We could talk about things, and joke about things, that only we could talk about. Neither of us are particularly…special, but our closest friends are. We joked about being sidekicks, classic movie tropes, and that kind of bullshit. We shared war stories, traumas, and insecurities. I consider him one of my best friends." Rhodey paused. "And even though he was on Barnes' team, even though he was trying to win, he still tried to catch me when I got shot down, same as you…and I still miss him. But Tony, I wouldn't switch sides for him."
"...Rhodey, do you want me to tell you I'm sorry that you lost Sam? Because I kind of thought we were talking about me here-"
"No, you jerk…I'm trying to tell you that at the end of the day, no matter how great of a guy Sam is…he isn't you." Rhodey looked up at Tony, the most genuine Tony could remember him ever appearing. "If I lost you Tony, and I thought you were dead…just like…like when we lost you in the desert…"
Tony watched in awe as moments passed in silence, and Rhodey struggled to keep his voice free of threatening emotion. "That…That was the worst few months of my life. I was helpless. You were gone. I had the entire United States Air Force at my back, and I couldn't save my best friend."
Tony jumped upright. "James, you did save me – you found me, you've always had my back."
"Yah, well," the darker man sniffed slightly, regaining his composure. "We got lucky that time. But Tony, I'm trying to explain that…If I were Steve, and you were Barnes…I would pick you every time. Don't blame Steve for the choice he made. You can be angry with him. You can feel betrayed. But don't think he did it to spite you. And certainly don't think he did it without fully understanding how much he was hurting you. That's why he busted your damn teammates out of their cells. That's why he left you that message. If you ever need him, he will be here. But he knew he had to follow what he thought was right. Steve had to leave, and it must have killed him to do it; I know I would never be able to live with myself if I betrayed Sam like that – but the only thing that would get me through it was knowing that I did it for you." Rhodey stiffened, an air of soldier's nobility around him. "You have always been, and will always be, my best friend and my brother."
Tony let his words seep into his skin and worm their way to his ramshackle heart. He wasn't alone. He was lonely maybe, feeling let down – but he would never be alone.
Without his consent, tears built up in his eyes. Tony furiously wiped them away, trying to mutter something of an excuse of allergies or some bullshit to James, who just looked at him knowingly without a hint of teasing.
"It's alright, Tony. You've been through a lot. It's just me, man."
"James…I…"
And his big, brown eyes found their way to Rhodey's so that the Lieutenant Colonel could see every ounce of pain swimming in their depths. The Great Tony Stark seemed so small, so childlike, that Rhodes was afraid he'd break him if he so much as touched him.
"James?" It was hardly above a whisper.
"Yeah, Tony?"
"Can I sleep here tonight?" Tony Stark paused, looking down at his hands, then slowly looking back to his best friend - his last bit of family. "I'm having nightmares."
Okay, I think we all needed a little bit of Tony/Rhodey feels and some good ole fashioned angst after CACW. I know I cried for like a solid hour. That movie was breathtakingly good 3
Please review! I really, really loved writing this chapter! I want to know your thoughts!
