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Title: A Million Shades of Blue
Author: Not Applicable
Pairing/Characters: Tony Stark/James Rhodes
Rating: Teen and Up
Genre: Heavy Angst
Word Count: 8540 total
Warnings: Grief/mourning, possible character death.
Summary: “I just know that if I could get to wherever he is, I could find him. Dead or alive, I'd bring him back to us.”
James Rhodes will always be able to find Tony Stark.
Rhodey didn't even feel it anymore when the War Machine went supersonic. He just tightened his fists and checked his trajectory and arrival time while also initiating an uplink to JARVIS. The Department of Defense didn't know that Tony's household AI was accessible through Rhodey's suit, and he liked it that way. Their scientists weren't even able to detect it, let alone do anything about it.
Rhodey was flying over Barbados, the tiny island barely a blur beneath him. He'd be in New York City in an hour if he kept it at Mach 2. The War Machine could handle it. Rhodey thought of the time he and Tony went to Bridgetown for Spring Break and Tony disappeared at a block party, dancing his way into a crowd of sweaty bodies that seemed to pulse around him. Rhodey looked for him for two hours before finding Tony drinking a young coconut on the beach with a boy who was all dark skin and hazel eyes and big hair and a white smile.
JARVIS chimed in suddenly. “He is gone, sir,” JARVIS said.
Rhodey wanted to ask why JARVIS was calling him 'sir' all of a sudden, but then he realized – gone -
“What do you mean, J?”
“I regret to inform you that Mr. Stark has flown into an interdimensional portal which has been permanently closed behind him.” JARVIS paused. Actually paused, as if to take a breath. “I can no longer detect his biometrics or locate the Mark 7 armor anywhere on this planet.”
Rhodey punched it to Mach 4. So maybe JARVIS wasn't having any luck, but Rhodey knew he could find Tony. He was the only one that could, most days.
*
The War Machine was nearly in pieces when he landed on Tony's disassembly strip. The top floor of the tower was in shambles, wires sparking and parts of the building facade hanging off. Rhodey entered a few commands and War Machine folded open, and he strode out of it towards the battered living room. He heard footsteps and saw Pepper come around the corner from the elevator, her eyes wide and horrified, her steps quick towards him.
“I saw it on the news,” she said, and then she started shaking her head, and now she was covering her face and screaming into her palms, still striding blindly towards him through all the debris, and Rhodey met her halfway in an embrace that didn't have much strength to it. He held her tighter when he felt her scream vibrating in his chest, her throat probably raw already, her little hands in white-knuckled fists and jammed against her mouth.
Rhodey had waited his entire life to meet Captain America, so he was obviously a bit disappointed in himself when the first thing he did was not reach out for a handshake, but instead aim his fist right at that all-American face.
It was almost as if Cap let it happen. His head jerked to the side and he coughed a bit, but other than that he did nothing in response. He didn't meet Rhodey's eyes when he said it again. “I'm sorry, Colonel.” And then he added, “It had to be done.” Rhodey glanced at Natasha, the spy that had them all fooled last year, and though she met his eyes her gaze was reluctant, shameful. Bruce Banner was just sitting in his chair at the conference table and not speaking, not looking at anyone, his hand in a tight fist on the tabletop. Clint Barton was fiddling with his watch, but his eyes were solemn when he cast a glance in Rhodey's direction. Thor was standing and pacing the floor behind Rhodey, and it should have made him nervous but it didn't. Thor touched Rhodey then, just rested a hand on his shoulder, and his voice should have been booming when he spoke but it wasn't.
“I am sorry for your loss,” he said, gentle as a child's touch. Rhodey shrugged off his hand and walked out of the room.
Rhodey went back upstairs to Tony's penthouse to find Pepper sweeping the kitchen floor. She'd cleared off the countertops and wiped everything down, rearranged the jars of dry beans and pickled peppers that had been on display. Something was in the oven. She looked up at him and smiled, her eyes red and puffy.
“Just trying to make the place livable again,” she laughed, a hollow sound.
Rhodey got a ladder and began tucking frayed wires back into the ceiling when he heard glass shattering, smash then smash then smash, and he turned to see Pepper launching those same jars across the room, and she was screaming again, but this time there were words. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Rhodey understood why she wasn't able to be any more eloquent than that.
Rhodey walked over and took her by the shoulders, let her sob into his shirt for a while before he walked her to the bedroom, which hadn't received any damage from the battle. Pepper lay on the bed gasping for breath as Rhodey ran a bath for her, and he took off her shoes for her and let her hair down, shook it out for her and whispered, “It's okay, Pep, I'll find him.” He didn't like the way she grinned at that so he left and went to make her a Sidecar, and he went back to the bathroom to find her neck-deep in bubbles with her vacant gaze aimed at Baraka.
He took the food out of the oven (enchiladas) and ate a little, then plated some for Pepper before working on his armor for about an hour. He checked in on Pepper again to find that she'd fallen asleep. He nudged her and she stirred without a startle, smiling at him like she was so glad he was there when he handed her a robe and got up to give her privacy. He made her eat one enchilada and then put her to bed with a Gimlet, and he continued working on War Machine. He was determined to have it flight-ready by the morning. He'd work through the night if he had to. He was going to find Tony.
*
The next day there were piles and piles of flowers at the door of Stark Tower. Left by thankful locals for Tony's sacrifice. There had been a candlelight vigil the night before, and there was another scheduled for that night as well. SHIELD released a statement about what happened, and Rhodey thought that they should have at least credited JARVIS with the quote, “We are no longer able to track the whereabouts of the Iron Man armor on this planet.” Everyone saw what happened. Everyone saw Tony disappear into the sky. The next day, Tony Stark was officially declared dead.
Rhodey went into Tony's workshop and found pieces of prototype suits – blue gauntlets here or silver boots there. He stayed there for a while, just messing with Tony's tech and doing nothing. Rhodey went to lunch on Tony's guest floor, also untouched by the battle, and Steve said hello though he didn't look in his eyes. Widow said nothing – she picked up her sandwich and left, her face red as she exited. Rhodey ate with the rest of them and hated every second of it. Pepper was there too but she was solemn, just mincing up the matzoh balls in her soup until it looked like stew, and she never took a single bite.
Back in the penthouse, Rhodey lay on the couch with Pepper nodding off on his chest, wind gusting in through the busted-out windows. “I don't know what to do with myself,” she said, her voice lazy with grief. “Tony was my boss and one of my best friends. Who do we...” Follow, Rhodey thought she might continue. Or take care of, which would have been more accurate.
Past tense. She was speaking in past tense. He really fucking hated that.
*
“Sir, your dress uniform has arrived by way of your mother. Due to a lack of space here at Stark Tower, I have arranged accommodations for her at the Waldorf-Astoria.”
“What? Why is my mom here? My uniform? Why -”
“The memorial service for Mr. Stark has been scheduled for ten o'clock tomorrow morning, sir.”
“Why is there gonna be a service?” Rhodey asked. “And why are you calling me 'sir'? I'm not – I didn't make you, Tony did.” Pepper was on her tablet beside him trying to type something, and she perked up at Rhodey's and JARVIS's conversation.
“You wrote 33% of my coding and designed the entirety of my server configuration,” JARVIS explained, “It is for this reason that Mr. Stark has programmed me to regard you as my creator as well.”
Rhodey was in a top-secret room in Tony's Malibu mansion, installing rack after rack into so many servers that he'd lost count by now. He then hardwired them together and continued on, knowing this task would last well into the night.
The next morning, he and Tony were sitting on the couch side by side, each with a glass of champagne.
“You ready?” Tony asked him, and Rhodey nodded eagerly. “Alright, here goes...” Tony cleared his throat and smiled into the air, and Rhodey couldn't help but smile, too.
“JARVIS?” Tony said aloud, and a smooth English voice responded without a moment's hesitation.
“Yes, sir?”
Tony leaned over and kissed Rhodey's lips for the first time in fifteen years, then clinked their glasses together. “Our baby,” he whispered, still smiling against Rhodey's mouth.
“Okay, well – stop talking like he's gone,” Rhodey said out loud, maybe to JARVIS or to Pepper or probably to those jerks outside holding candles and singing hymns. “I'll find him.” Rhodey felt Pepper's hand on his and he wanted to brush her away, but he wouldn't.
*
Rhodey did not attend the memorial service.
Instead, he called Dr. Jane Foster in Tromsø. Earth was still working on the technology to create and control an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. Rhodey put his head in his hands and cried.
*
Everyone got back to the tower and congregated on the guest floor, just the team and Pepper and Rhodey. Pepper was remarkably composed and that made Rhodey feel better. Perhaps she'd gotten some closure from the service. People joked lightly and talked about Tony a little bit, but mostly they all sat quietly and admired the things Tony had decorated the place with – jazz records framed on the wall, vintage Captain America tour posters, photos of him and Rhodey on vacation in college. Rhodey picked up a photo of him and Tony in Bridgetown, taken by the gorgeous boy with light eyes and big hair, Rhodey holding Tony's drink and Tony looking right at Rhodey, his smile electric.
“You've known him since college?” Rhodey heard, and he knew it was Cap. Steve was still in his suit, his black tie made of linen, nothing flashy about him today at all. Rhodey nodded. “I wish I could have made a different decision. I really do, Jim. I can't stand that he's not here now because -”
“He's gonna laugh when I tell him about how bummed you got,” Rhodey said, still looking at the photo and remembering the smell of roasted chicken and ocean water in the air that night. Steve didn't respond. He just walked away.
Later, Rhodey went out on the balcony to find Natasha smoking a cigarette. He stood beside her, and even from almost a hundred floors up, they could hear the songs being sung at the vigil below.
“I almost didn't do it,” she said. “I almost told Cap, 'No. He's coming back.'”
Later that night, Pepper slept while Rhodey sat on the floor of Tony's walk-in closet. He and Tony had gone to see American Beauty in the theatre when it came out, and Tony scolded him when he snickered at Annette Benning's character for sobbing into her dead husband's clothes. Tony's cologne was in the air and the collars of his shirts all smelled like his neck, Rhodey realized, a mix of sweat and shampoo but mostly just skin and hair. Rhodey had one of Tony's new gauntlets on, and he could see that it was made to fit Tony's hand perfectly. The fingers were thinner and shorter than Rhodey's but he forced it on anyway, just to feel it wrapped around his skin, covering him.
He wanted to apologize to Tony for laughing at that scene in American Beauty. It was immature of him and not nice at all. It was a very serious moment and he should have been paying attention.
He went back to the bedroom and Pepper sat up when he slid under the covers. He couldn't see her face in the dark and he was glad for that.
“Rhodey, you okay?” she asked. She didn't wait for an answer before rolling to him and holding him tight, whispering things to him, being strong for him when he felt so weak.
*
A few days later Rhodey met up with one of his old buddies from MIT, now an astrophysics professor at NYU. He also said that humanity had yet to be able to create and control an Einstein-Rosen Bridge.
Rhodey thought about putting on the War Machine and nailing it at Mach 5, then just flying until the fucking thing ripped itself apart. Maybe if he went fast enough...
He had lunch with his mother. She talked to him about his father's death, about the way she slept with pillows piled beside her for months and months, attempting to recreate the feel of him, the warmth of him. She held her son's hand and listened to him, listened to rambling stories about the trip to Barbados and his first time seeing Tony suit up and become Iron Man. They went to the park and his mother insisted on saying a prayer for him. “Pray for Tony, too,” Rhodey said, and his heart sank at the look his words brought to his mother's face.
“Oh, Jim,” she said. “There's nothing we can do for him here on this earth anymore. It's time to let go and let God.”
Rhodey went back to the tower and sat on the floor of Tony's closet. Someone was cooking something nearby. He could smell fire-roasted meat all around him.
“You were gone for two hours, Tony!”
“So? I was hangin' with...you know, the guy. Mr. Big Hair.”
“Tony, you're a tourist here and you look like you bleed money,” he said, and Tony rolled his eyes at that. “You don't know that guy, you don't know what he could be up to. It's not safe.”
“Come on, he was nice enough -”
“Don't wander off, okay? I mean if you want Mr. Big Hair then I'm sure he'll be around, the festival lasts all week. Just don't disappear like that on me again.”
Tony's lips curved into a grin that made Rhodey's face hot. “Oh, I see.”
“Shut up.” Rhodey couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips. Tony approached and Rhodey thought of resisting, thought of moving away when Tony wanted so much but just couldn't seem to give the same things back in return. But he didn't – he wrapped an arm around Tony's shoulders and they met in a kiss, carnival drums outside beating a rhythm that Rhodey could feel in his chest.
“You're right,” Tony said. “We're only here for a few more days. It'll be just you and me from now on, I promise.”
“I promise,” Tony said again later that night, his hips bucking back at Rhodey, who leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss between Tony's shoulderblades.
Tony said that a lot but rarely ever followed through, so Rhodey was surprised when Tony didn't wander off again for the rest of their stay in Bridgetown.
Still, when they got back to the states, they broke up. For the third time.
Rhodey finally got War Machine back in good shape on the day that Tony's will was read. He left everything related to the company to Pepper – everything – as well as Stark Tower, one of his jets, and one billion dollars. She barely seemed to hear Tony's lawyer when he read it to them, just nodded and gripped Rhodey's hand tighter. Happy was given most of Tony's cars, all of his North American vacation homes, another one of his jets, four yachts, one billion dollars, and a horse named Pepper Jr. Tony left Rhodey everything else. Everything. All of his tech, all of his stock in Stark Industries, his home in Malibu, the rest of his cars and yachts, the rest of his vacation homes all over the world, his personal jet, three private islands, a ranch in Montana, hundreds of square miles of undeveloped land, all of his savings that weren't to be donated to charity, his parents' wedding rings, and more. Happy and Pepper actually blinked and shared a look, flabbergasted.
“Hm,” Tony's lawyer hummed quietly. “Seems he really wanted to look after you.”
*
Rhodey heard the gentle click of Pepper's high heels as she entered. She'd gone to a meeting today, her first attempt to return to work in three weeks. He heard her drop her keys and her purse and mail, and she walked over to him to drop a letter in his lap.
“Something from the Air Force,” she said. Rhodey put down his tablet and picked up the envelope, opening it – it was just a confirmation of his extended leave. Six more weeks off.
Pepper sat down as Rhodey picked up his tablet again. He was reading a paper by Dr. Erik Selvig. Wormhole theory. Pepper peeked at the screen and then at his face, and he didn't look at her in return.
“Rhodey,” she said gently. “Ever heard of 'letting go and letting God'?”
*
Rhodey's mother began to call several times a day. Always checking in on him, asking if he was okay. Conversation in the tower got stilted and strange towards him, he felt, and Rhodey knew he had a reason to be suspicious when Pepper kept mentioning her therapist and how great she was. One night Rhodey picked up his tablet to find a business card lying on it – Pepper's therapist, located in Yonkers.
It was clear to Rhodey now that everyone thought he was going insane with grief. Every night Rhodey watched the sky, watched for any sign of red and gold against the horizon. He read scientific papers that all ended the same way (humanity has yet to harness the power of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge). He had to let go and let God.
Or rather, a god.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Author: Not Applicable
Pairing/Characters: Tony Stark/James Rhodes
Rating: Teen and Up
Genre: Heavy Angst
Word Count: 8540 total
Warnings: Grief/mourning, possible character death.
Summary: “I just know that if I could get to wherever he is, I could find him. Dead or alive, I'd bring him back to us.”
James Rhodes will always be able to find Tony Stark.
Rhodey didn't even feel it anymore when the War Machine went supersonic. He just tightened his fists and checked his trajectory and arrival time while also initiating an uplink to JARVIS. The Department of Defense didn't know that Tony's household AI was accessible through Rhodey's suit, and he liked it that way. Their scientists weren't even able to detect it, let alone do anything about it.
Rhodey was flying over Barbados, the tiny island barely a blur beneath him. He'd be in New York City in an hour if he kept it at Mach 2. The War Machine could handle it. Rhodey thought of the time he and Tony went to Bridgetown for Spring Break and Tony disappeared at a block party, dancing his way into a crowd of sweaty bodies that seemed to pulse around him. Rhodey looked for him for two hours before finding Tony drinking a young coconut on the beach with a boy who was all dark skin and hazel eyes and big hair and a white smile.
JARVIS chimed in suddenly. “He is gone, sir,” JARVIS said.
Rhodey wanted to ask why JARVIS was calling him 'sir' all of a sudden, but then he realized – gone -
“What do you mean, J?”
“I regret to inform you that Mr. Stark has flown into an interdimensional portal which has been permanently closed behind him.” JARVIS paused. Actually paused, as if to take a breath. “I can no longer detect his biometrics or locate the Mark 7 armor anywhere on this planet.”
Rhodey punched it to Mach 4. So maybe JARVIS wasn't having any luck, but Rhodey knew he could find Tony. He was the only one that could, most days.
*
The War Machine was nearly in pieces when he landed on Tony's disassembly strip. The top floor of the tower was in shambles, wires sparking and parts of the building facade hanging off. Rhodey entered a few commands and War Machine folded open, and he strode out of it towards the battered living room. He heard footsteps and saw Pepper come around the corner from the elevator, her eyes wide and horrified, her steps quick towards him.
“I saw it on the news,” she said, and then she started shaking her head, and now she was covering her face and screaming into her palms, still striding blindly towards him through all the debris, and Rhodey met her halfway in an embrace that didn't have much strength to it. He held her tighter when he felt her scream vibrating in his chest, her throat probably raw already, her little hands in white-knuckled fists and jammed against her mouth.
Rhodey had waited his entire life to meet Captain America, so he was obviously a bit disappointed in himself when the first thing he did was not reach out for a handshake, but instead aim his fist right at that all-American face.
It was almost as if Cap let it happen. His head jerked to the side and he coughed a bit, but other than that he did nothing in response. He didn't meet Rhodey's eyes when he said it again. “I'm sorry, Colonel.” And then he added, “It had to be done.” Rhodey glanced at Natasha, the spy that had them all fooled last year, and though she met his eyes her gaze was reluctant, shameful. Bruce Banner was just sitting in his chair at the conference table and not speaking, not looking at anyone, his hand in a tight fist on the tabletop. Clint Barton was fiddling with his watch, but his eyes were solemn when he cast a glance in Rhodey's direction. Thor was standing and pacing the floor behind Rhodey, and it should have made him nervous but it didn't. Thor touched Rhodey then, just rested a hand on his shoulder, and his voice should have been booming when he spoke but it wasn't.
“I am sorry for your loss,” he said, gentle as a child's touch. Rhodey shrugged off his hand and walked out of the room.
Rhodey went back upstairs to Tony's penthouse to find Pepper sweeping the kitchen floor. She'd cleared off the countertops and wiped everything down, rearranged the jars of dry beans and pickled peppers that had been on display. Something was in the oven. She looked up at him and smiled, her eyes red and puffy.
“Just trying to make the place livable again,” she laughed, a hollow sound.
Rhodey got a ladder and began tucking frayed wires back into the ceiling when he heard glass shattering, smash then smash then smash, and he turned to see Pepper launching those same jars across the room, and she was screaming again, but this time there were words. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Rhodey understood why she wasn't able to be any more eloquent than that.
Rhodey walked over and took her by the shoulders, let her sob into his shirt for a while before he walked her to the bedroom, which hadn't received any damage from the battle. Pepper lay on the bed gasping for breath as Rhodey ran a bath for her, and he took off her shoes for her and let her hair down, shook it out for her and whispered, “It's okay, Pep, I'll find him.” He didn't like the way she grinned at that so he left and went to make her a Sidecar, and he went back to the bathroom to find her neck-deep in bubbles with her vacant gaze aimed at Baraka.
He took the food out of the oven (enchiladas) and ate a little, then plated some for Pepper before working on his armor for about an hour. He checked in on Pepper again to find that she'd fallen asleep. He nudged her and she stirred without a startle, smiling at him like she was so glad he was there when he handed her a robe and got up to give her privacy. He made her eat one enchilada and then put her to bed with a Gimlet, and he continued working on War Machine. He was determined to have it flight-ready by the morning. He'd work through the night if he had to. He was going to find Tony.
*
The next day there were piles and piles of flowers at the door of Stark Tower. Left by thankful locals for Tony's sacrifice. There had been a candlelight vigil the night before, and there was another scheduled for that night as well. SHIELD released a statement about what happened, and Rhodey thought that they should have at least credited JARVIS with the quote, “We are no longer able to track the whereabouts of the Iron Man armor on this planet.” Everyone saw what happened. Everyone saw Tony disappear into the sky. The next day, Tony Stark was officially declared dead.
Rhodey went into Tony's workshop and found pieces of prototype suits – blue gauntlets here or silver boots there. He stayed there for a while, just messing with Tony's tech and doing nothing. Rhodey went to lunch on Tony's guest floor, also untouched by the battle, and Steve said hello though he didn't look in his eyes. Widow said nothing – she picked up her sandwich and left, her face red as she exited. Rhodey ate with the rest of them and hated every second of it. Pepper was there too but she was solemn, just mincing up the matzoh balls in her soup until it looked like stew, and she never took a single bite.
Back in the penthouse, Rhodey lay on the couch with Pepper nodding off on his chest, wind gusting in through the busted-out windows. “I don't know what to do with myself,” she said, her voice lazy with grief. “Tony was my boss and one of my best friends. Who do we...” Follow, Rhodey thought she might continue. Or take care of, which would have been more accurate.
Past tense. She was speaking in past tense. He really fucking hated that.
*
“Sir, your dress uniform has arrived by way of your mother. Due to a lack of space here at Stark Tower, I have arranged accommodations for her at the Waldorf-Astoria.”
“What? Why is my mom here? My uniform? Why -”
“The memorial service for Mr. Stark has been scheduled for ten o'clock tomorrow morning, sir.”
“Why is there gonna be a service?” Rhodey asked. “And why are you calling me 'sir'? I'm not – I didn't make you, Tony did.” Pepper was on her tablet beside him trying to type something, and she perked up at Rhodey's and JARVIS's conversation.
“You wrote 33% of my coding and designed the entirety of my server configuration,” JARVIS explained, “It is for this reason that Mr. Stark has programmed me to regard you as my creator as well.”
Rhodey was in a top-secret room in Tony's Malibu mansion, installing rack after rack into so many servers that he'd lost count by now. He then hardwired them together and continued on, knowing this task would last well into the night.
The next morning, he and Tony were sitting on the couch side by side, each with a glass of champagne.
“You ready?” Tony asked him, and Rhodey nodded eagerly. “Alright, here goes...” Tony cleared his throat and smiled into the air, and Rhodey couldn't help but smile, too.
“JARVIS?” Tony said aloud, and a smooth English voice responded without a moment's hesitation.
“Yes, sir?”
Tony leaned over and kissed Rhodey's lips for the first time in fifteen years, then clinked their glasses together. “Our baby,” he whispered, still smiling against Rhodey's mouth.
“Okay, well – stop talking like he's gone,” Rhodey said out loud, maybe to JARVIS or to Pepper or probably to those jerks outside holding candles and singing hymns. “I'll find him.” Rhodey felt Pepper's hand on his and he wanted to brush her away, but he wouldn't.
*
Rhodey did not attend the memorial service.
Instead, he called Dr. Jane Foster in Tromsø. Earth was still working on the technology to create and control an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. Rhodey put his head in his hands and cried.
*
Everyone got back to the tower and congregated on the guest floor, just the team and Pepper and Rhodey. Pepper was remarkably composed and that made Rhodey feel better. Perhaps she'd gotten some closure from the service. People joked lightly and talked about Tony a little bit, but mostly they all sat quietly and admired the things Tony had decorated the place with – jazz records framed on the wall, vintage Captain America tour posters, photos of him and Rhodey on vacation in college. Rhodey picked up a photo of him and Tony in Bridgetown, taken by the gorgeous boy with light eyes and big hair, Rhodey holding Tony's drink and Tony looking right at Rhodey, his smile electric.
“You've known him since college?” Rhodey heard, and he knew it was Cap. Steve was still in his suit, his black tie made of linen, nothing flashy about him today at all. Rhodey nodded. “I wish I could have made a different decision. I really do, Jim. I can't stand that he's not here now because -”
“He's gonna laugh when I tell him about how bummed you got,” Rhodey said, still looking at the photo and remembering the smell of roasted chicken and ocean water in the air that night. Steve didn't respond. He just walked away.
Later, Rhodey went out on the balcony to find Natasha smoking a cigarette. He stood beside her, and even from almost a hundred floors up, they could hear the songs being sung at the vigil below.
“I almost didn't do it,” she said. “I almost told Cap, 'No. He's coming back.'”
Later that night, Pepper slept while Rhodey sat on the floor of Tony's walk-in closet. He and Tony had gone to see American Beauty in the theatre when it came out, and Tony scolded him when he snickered at Annette Benning's character for sobbing into her dead husband's clothes. Tony's cologne was in the air and the collars of his shirts all smelled like his neck, Rhodey realized, a mix of sweat and shampoo but mostly just skin and hair. Rhodey had one of Tony's new gauntlets on, and he could see that it was made to fit Tony's hand perfectly. The fingers were thinner and shorter than Rhodey's but he forced it on anyway, just to feel it wrapped around his skin, covering him.
He wanted to apologize to Tony for laughing at that scene in American Beauty. It was immature of him and not nice at all. It was a very serious moment and he should have been paying attention.
He went back to the bedroom and Pepper sat up when he slid under the covers. He couldn't see her face in the dark and he was glad for that.
“Rhodey, you okay?” she asked. She didn't wait for an answer before rolling to him and holding him tight, whispering things to him, being strong for him when he felt so weak.
*
A few days later Rhodey met up with one of his old buddies from MIT, now an astrophysics professor at NYU. He also said that humanity had yet to be able to create and control an Einstein-Rosen Bridge.
Rhodey thought about putting on the War Machine and nailing it at Mach 5, then just flying until the fucking thing ripped itself apart. Maybe if he went fast enough...
He had lunch with his mother. She talked to him about his father's death, about the way she slept with pillows piled beside her for months and months, attempting to recreate the feel of him, the warmth of him. She held her son's hand and listened to him, listened to rambling stories about the trip to Barbados and his first time seeing Tony suit up and become Iron Man. They went to the park and his mother insisted on saying a prayer for him. “Pray for Tony, too,” Rhodey said, and his heart sank at the look his words brought to his mother's face.
“Oh, Jim,” she said. “There's nothing we can do for him here on this earth anymore. It's time to let go and let God.”
Rhodey went back to the tower and sat on the floor of Tony's closet. Someone was cooking something nearby. He could smell fire-roasted meat all around him.
“You were gone for two hours, Tony!”
“So? I was hangin' with...you know, the guy. Mr. Big Hair.”
“Tony, you're a tourist here and you look like you bleed money,” he said, and Tony rolled his eyes at that. “You don't know that guy, you don't know what he could be up to. It's not safe.”
“Come on, he was nice enough -”
“Don't wander off, okay? I mean if you want Mr. Big Hair then I'm sure he'll be around, the festival lasts all week. Just don't disappear like that on me again.”
Tony's lips curved into a grin that made Rhodey's face hot. “Oh, I see.”
“Shut up.” Rhodey couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips. Tony approached and Rhodey thought of resisting, thought of moving away when Tony wanted so much but just couldn't seem to give the same things back in return. But he didn't – he wrapped an arm around Tony's shoulders and they met in a kiss, carnival drums outside beating a rhythm that Rhodey could feel in his chest.
“You're right,” Tony said. “We're only here for a few more days. It'll be just you and me from now on, I promise.”
“I promise,” Tony said again later that night, his hips bucking back at Rhodey, who leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss between Tony's shoulderblades.
Tony said that a lot but rarely ever followed through, so Rhodey was surprised when Tony didn't wander off again for the rest of their stay in Bridgetown.
Still, when they got back to the states, they broke up. For the third time.
Rhodey finally got War Machine back in good shape on the day that Tony's will was read. He left everything related to the company to Pepper – everything – as well as Stark Tower, one of his jets, and one billion dollars. She barely seemed to hear Tony's lawyer when he read it to them, just nodded and gripped Rhodey's hand tighter. Happy was given most of Tony's cars, all of his North American vacation homes, another one of his jets, four yachts, one billion dollars, and a horse named Pepper Jr. Tony left Rhodey everything else. Everything. All of his tech, all of his stock in Stark Industries, his home in Malibu, the rest of his cars and yachts, the rest of his vacation homes all over the world, his personal jet, three private islands, a ranch in Montana, hundreds of square miles of undeveloped land, all of his savings that weren't to be donated to charity, his parents' wedding rings, and more. Happy and Pepper actually blinked and shared a look, flabbergasted.
“Hm,” Tony's lawyer hummed quietly. “Seems he really wanted to look after you.”
*
Rhodey heard the gentle click of Pepper's high heels as she entered. She'd gone to a meeting today, her first attempt to return to work in three weeks. He heard her drop her keys and her purse and mail, and she walked over to him to drop a letter in his lap.
“Something from the Air Force,” she said. Rhodey put down his tablet and picked up the envelope, opening it – it was just a confirmation of his extended leave. Six more weeks off.
Pepper sat down as Rhodey picked up his tablet again. He was reading a paper by Dr. Erik Selvig. Wormhole theory. Pepper peeked at the screen and then at his face, and he didn't look at her in return.
“Rhodey,” she said gently. “Ever heard of 'letting go and letting God'?”
*
Rhodey's mother began to call several times a day. Always checking in on him, asking if he was okay. Conversation in the tower got stilted and strange towards him, he felt, and Rhodey knew he had a reason to be suspicious when Pepper kept mentioning her therapist and how great she was. One night Rhodey picked up his tablet to find a business card lying on it – Pepper's therapist, located in Yonkers.
It was clear to Rhodey now that everyone thought he was going insane with grief. Every night Rhodey watched the sky, watched for any sign of red and gold against the horizon. He read scientific papers that all ended the same way (humanity has yet to harness the power of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge). He had to let go and let God.
Or rather, a god.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
