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27dragons · 5 years

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Name of Piece: No Fellow in the Firmament Square Filled: S5 - [image: iron patriot] Rating: G Warnings: None Summary: Some moments in Tony and Rhodey’s history. Created For: @tonystarkbingo

“But I am constant as the Northern Star, of whose true fixed and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament.” --Julius Caesar, Shakespeare

Contrary to popular belief, Rhodey didn’t meet Tony at MIT.

Technically, it was off-campus. Jim was walking down the street, looking for the little bodega that a ROTC buddy had told him about that didn’t card for beer, when something exploded high above him.

Jim ducked and ran half a block, pursued by the tinkle of glass hitting the pavement. When he stopped and looked back, the window had fallen out of the top-story apartment, and there were plumes of smoke billowing out.

Jim set his teeth and ran back toward the building, ducking through the door and jogging up the stairs as fast as he could go. The top floor only had two apartments, and it wasn’t hard to guess which one the explosion had come from, given the loud swearing going on behind the door.

Jim lifted his hand to knock just as the door opened, releasing even more smoke and a startled teenager a few years younger than Jim. “Oh! Uh, hey, are you the neighbor? Because I swear, I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“No,” Jim said, “I’m--”

“Listen, if management sent you, I’m good for the window. In fact, it might be best if we just replace all the windows with something a little sturdier, because--”

“I’m not from management,” Jim interrupted. “I was walking by and saw, and I wanted to make sure no one was hurt.”

The teen pulled up short and stared at Jim. “The window didn’t fall on you, did it?”

“I got out of the way in time,” Jim assured him.

“And then you came back to the building where something had just exploded?”

“It seemed like the thing to do.”

The teen smiled. “You’re my kind of stupid,” he said and offered a hand. “Tony Stark.”

Bemused, Jim shook the kid’s hand. “Jim Rhodes.”

“You’re my new best friend, Rhodey,” Tony said, and tugged Jim into the apartment instead of letting go. “I’ll get this cleaned up and we can make another mess.”

[’ware the readmore!]

When Rhodey heard the news, he ran all the way from campus to Tony’s apartment, taking the stairs two at a time. He burst through the door to find Tony sitting cross-legged on the floor, tinkering with DUM-E’s chassis. He glanced up, said, “Hey, Rhodey,” and went back to work, sticking the screwdriver between his teeth.

Oh shit, Rhodey thought. He hasn’t heard. I’m going to have to be the one to tell him.

Then Tony looked up again and said, “Oh. You heard.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey said, and tried not to feel relieved. “It was on the TV at the Student Union. What... Tones, what are you doing?”

“Fixing DUM-E’s sticky wheel,” Tony said. “It keeps making him spin around in useless circles and I thought I should do something about it. Also I think I might be in shock.”

“Yeah.” Rhodey knelt next to Tony on the floor, running a hand down DUM-E’s arm. “You want me to go with you to talk to your professors?”

“What for?”

“So you can get an extension for your classes.”

“Oh, that. No need.”

Rhodey stared at his friend. “You’re going to withdraw?”

“What? No, of course not. We’re only a couple of weeks from the end of the semester.”

“Tony, I think when the shock wears off, you’re going to want some time.”

Tony actually stopped working and sat back on his heels to look at Rhodey. This close, Rhodey could see the red rimming his eyes. “I can’t,” he said. “Me at MIT, this was... This degree was the thing that was supposed to make Dad proud.”

“Oh, Tone.” Christ, it was enough to break his heart. Rhodey sighed and pulled Tony into a hug. “Okay, man. Whatever you need, I’ve got your back. You know that, right?”

Tony endured the embrace for a moment, then pushed away. “You can come with me to the funeral,” he said. “But right now, what I need is for you to hand me that can of WD40.”

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“You can totally do this.”

“Easy for you to say.” Rhodey’s voice was reedy and thin across the phone line. “You’ve been doing product demonstrations for like twenty years already.”

“My first was at thirteen,” Tony said, “so more like twelve years.”

“Whatever. The point remains--”

“The point remains,” Tony overrode Rhodey’s nervous blathering, “the point remains that you got this. You know these systems inside and out, you know what the cost-benefit charts look like, and if you’re still anything like you were at MIT, you’ve been dreaming about this presentation for the last week.”

“Yeah, dreaming I walked in naked,” Rhodey grumbled. Tony could practically hear the pout over the line.

“You’re not going to walk in naked,” Tony huffed. “You’re going to blow them away. They’re going to wonder why they didn’t switch to Stark guidance systems five years ago.”

“And I’m going to tell them that five years ago, these systems were just a scribble on the back of your doctoral thesis,” Rhodey said.

“There you go,” Tony said. “You got this.”

“I got this,” Rhodey repeated. “Okay. Okay. I can do this. Thanks, Tones.”

“Anytime, sugarbear. Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell ‘em if they make you the official liaison to Stark Industries for the duration of the contract, I’ll come down another five percent on overhead costs.”

“Tony, that’s going to be over half a million dollars. Per year.”

“Not enough?”

“Obie’s going to murder you if he finds out.”

“Nah. He’ll be glad I’m finally taking an interest.”

The less said about Afghanistan and Obadiah Stane, the better.

Tony was dozing off into his schwarma when JARVIS murmured into his ear, “Sir, you have an incoming call. It’s Colonel Rhodes.”

Tony rocked to his feet, startling several of the other Avengers. “Sorry,” he said. “I have to take this.” He put the helmet on and cued JARVIS to connect the call.

“You son of a bitch,” Rhodey said.

“Honeybear--”

“An alien army, Tones? And you don’t even call? I had to find out from radio chatter?”

“Platypus, you are literally on the other side of the Earth right now. Even at top speed, it would’ve taken you a solid eight hours to get here. And that’s ignoring the time it would take to get clearance from your chain of command.”

“And you were positive you could wrap up an entire alien army in eight hours, were you?” Hoo boy, Rhodey was livid.

Tony closed his eyes. “I needed you to be the second line of defense.”

Rhodey was silent for a moment. “How bad?”

“Rhodey--”

“I’m watching some shakycam footage of you flying a missile into a portal, Tones. How. Bad?”

“Bad,” Tony admitted. “They were going to nuke the city.”

“I’m coming,” Rhodey said, his tone admitting no refusal.

“I’ll heat up the sake.”

“How’s that?” Tony asked. “Need any adjustments? Does it pinch?”

“It’s fine, Tony,” Rhodey said. “Ease up. You’re like an old woman.” He braced his hands on the arms of the chair, bracing himself to stand up.

“I just want it to be perfect.”

Rhodey grunted. He hadn’t seen Tony this manic and wracked with guilt in years. “Hey,” he said gently. “Tones. I’m alive, okay?”

“I know,” Tony said, too fast, too sharp. “And we’re going to get you up to code in no time. Come on, hop to it, there’s walking to be done.” He held out his hands.

The far end of the parallel bars might as well be in Timbuktu, Rhodey thought, but he’d rather break his back again than admit it to Tony. He grasped Tony’s wrists, let Tony pull him carefully to his feet. The braces Tony had built stabilized him, redistributing his weight with each subtle shift. “Not bad,” he said.

“It’s just the initial prototype,” Tony promised. “I’ve got Friday recording both externally and with sensors in the braces for stress and motion analysis.”

Rhodey put his hands on the parallel bars, holding himself up. Tony ducked out of the way but hovered, ready to catch Rhodey despite the thick mats to either side of the bars. “When are you going to tell me what happened over there?” Rhodey asked.

“I know you watched the suit footage,” Tony said, not looking at him. “Come on, take a step, now.”

Rhodey huffed and twisted, dragging his right foot forward a few inches. The braces whirred softly as they compensated for the weight shift. “Sure,” he said, “but when are you going to tell me?”

“As soon as you’re off the painkillers so we can get drunk,” Tony said, surprisingly honest.

Rhodey thought about what he’d seen on that unsteady footage and nodded. “Fair. I’ll buy the first round.”

“You’re on.”

Rhodey stood at the window and looked out over a city in mourning.

The shock of Thanos’ victory was beginning to lift, and despite the wave of heartbreak and panic, people were beginning to rebuild their lives, to take care of each other, to help each other. Humans, Rhodey thought, not for the first time, were an amazingly resilient race.

He missed Sam.

“Rhodes.”

Rhodey didn’t answer, didn’t turn to look as Romanov came up beside him.

“Do you think he’s still out there?” She didn’t need to specify who.

“Absolutely.”

He could feel her looking at him, but kept his own gaze on the city. “What makes you so sure?”

Rhodey could almost feel sorry for her, never having known the kind of constancy that he’d had with Tony. He shook his head, smiling, just a little. “If you have to ask,” he said gently, “I can’t explain it. He’s out there. He’s coming back. And when he gets here, y’all had better be ready to work, ‘cause he’s gonna have a plan.”

#tonystarkbingo #tony stark #rhodey #my writing

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