The map was digital and updated in real time, but it was not as high-tech as “real time digital” made it sound. It was a grainy circle that periodically had waves of static wash over it, and its figures were extremely pixelated, giving it the appearance of a machine twenty years older than it really was. Built into the console, it showed small red blips moving over the terrain; hunched over it, Lt. Col. James Rhodes watched the blips intently, the light from the screen washing over his face.
The console was one of three. They were metal but all of them were dusty, perhaps from the ground, which was packed dirt. The place was dimly lit and had a thick, suffocating heat that was made worse by its stillness. The walls were dark green canvas.
A shadow fell over him.
“Sir?”
“Not now, Major.”
“Sir,” repeated the woman behind Lt. Col. Rhodes, stubbornly.
Rhodes looked up.
She held out a phone the size and weight of a brick. Like everything else, it was dusty. Rhodes took it and held it up to his ear. He could think of many things that would require such immediate attention and most of them weren’t good things. But he couldn’t fathom which thing it was. His heart beat only slightly faster, but his hands were steady and his voice calm when he said, “Hello?”
He listened.
It wasn’t bad news, after all.
The woman watching him saw his face change, saw a look of uncharacteristic shock. Most of the time, Lt. Col. Rhodes had a face that might as well have been carved from mahogany. He had an intense, serious expression that conveyed detached politeness, stern discipline, and high expectations. He was an excellent commander with the features to fit. But as he held the phone to his ear, his mask crumbled, and he stood up quickly, striding across the room.
Searing white light flooded the room as he moved aside a flap in the tent, and the Major winced. It was midday in central Afghanistan and the solar radiation was blistering. Despite the clear sky and the wicked sun, it was surprisingly cool; it was spring and it had been a hard winter. There had been snow in the mountains.
The woman rushed after Rhodes and the two of them hurried across the camp, not quite running, not quite walking. They didn’t stand out. Everyone else, like them, was in sand-colored fatigues, was covered in dust, and was rushing to do one thing or another. A man waving forward a truck that was backing up stopped it to let the two officers pass; two men hauling a crate of ammunition also paused respectfully in their wake.
“How long ago?” asked Rhodes into the phone. He side-stepped a pair of soldiers turning a piece of artillery around. The base was always active, always a swarming hive of activity, but he wasn’t letting any obstacle stand in his way. “Surgery? For what? When?”
The Major wondered suddenly whether this was a personal call, whether she should be following him or not. His level of concern seemed to be the type a man like himself would normally reserve for a large-scale crisis, but the words he were saying seemed somehow personal.
“So why the hell did it take so long?” he asked. His voice sounded angry, but it wasn’t anger that was being communicated. Worry and frustration, yes. Real anger? No. Rhodes did not lose his temper easily. His was a cold, slow-burning anger that was much more frightening than a raised voice.
“Yes. Okay. I’ll be there.” He hung up, stopped so abruptly that she nearly collided with him, and turned. “Major.”
“Yes, sir?”
“That explosion yesterday. The one north of Watabur, in the pass.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why wasn’t I informed that there were any survivors?”
The Major looked surprised. “There weren’t, sir.”
“Well, I just got word that there were ,” snapped Rhodes. “Send out some aircraft and comb the pass again. They found one wandering a few miles west of the caves. I want eyes on that area with a two-mile radius. Look for anything out of the ordinary. And anything you find, anything at all, reported directly to me. Understood?”
The Major nodded. “Yes, sir.” She felt that a two-mile radius around the explosion zone was excessive, but didn’t argue. She’d seen the explosion site. There was, frankly, nothing left, and she had doubts about there being any survivors, but didn’t voice them.
“I need a vehicle to take me to Jalalabad,” he said.
“Yes, sir. Sir?”
“Now.” That was it. He handed her back the phone and strode off, and the next time she saw him, he had a bag slung over one shoulder and had a look of grim determination on his face. He provided her no further information about either his reasons for leaving or when he would return; he told her she was the field commander until further notice, threw his bag into the back of the Humvee, and got in. Only one other man was with him, a private who looked anxious and eager to be driving.
They exchanged a salute that was an unspoken promise to keep things under control, and an unspoken expression of thanks for doing so. And with that, Rhodes drove away into the bright, clear horizon, leaving a trail of dust that hovered there for a long time after the vehicle had disappeared in the desert sun and its rumbling had faded away.
Rhodes had a purposeful walk, the walk of a man who was in charge and who was confident about his authority. He assumed that it was this walk that allowed him to walk through the hospital unmolested, the private at his heels. He had changed into his uniform and done his best to shake off the dust of the base camp, with moderate success.
It helped that the hospital seemed deserted. He saw no doctors, and no staff other than a single incredibly frazzled-looking nurse. In the rooms, he could hear moans, weeping, and keening. The hospital seemed busy.
He found room 601. An armed guard was standing outside.
“Lt. Col. James Rhodes,” he identified himself, showing an ID badge. The guard stepped aside. He opened the door and strode in; the private tried to follow but was blocked by the guard, and the door slammed in his face.
The room was surprisingly empty. A room from the 1950s, thought Rhodes for some reason. The floor was white tile, slightly stained, and the walls a pale, pale blue, the paint cracked in many places. There was a window across from the door that showed a view of the worn-down concrete apartments across the street and a busy street populated with cars, scooters, people, and military vehicles. The room had only one bed, and the bed was currently surrounded by a white curtain that hung from a steel rod, so that it was blocked from the door. It was incredibly quiet except for the beeping of a heart monitor.
Rhodes walked over to the bed slowly, around the curtain, and looked.
The man lying on the bed was turned toward the window and so the moment Rhodes walked around the corner, they made eye contact.
The man’s face broke into a grin. “Hey, Rhodey,” he said hoarsely.
“Oh my God,” sad Rhodes. He took three steps over to the bed, bent down, and embraced the man. “Tony, oh my God. I can’t believe it. You son of a bitch.”
The man laughed.
He was almost unrecognizable, but it was him, all right. In the three months since his capture, his hair had grown shaggy. Once a neat goatee, his facial hair was now a full beard. His right eye was swollen to the size of a small orange and was a radiant purple, and his lips were badly chapped, pale compared to his dark, burned skin. His body was frail, almost emaciated. But the sharp blue eyes and the laugh were unmistakable. Tony Stark, ambushed and captured, declared missing and presumed dead, was alive.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” demanded Rhodes.
Tony nodded, struggling to sit up. “It was me,” he confirmed, looking pleased with himself. He was wearing a white and blue hospital gown and had an IV taped to the back of his hand. Rhodes waited for him to get himself into a sitting position. His movements were stiff and unnatural, and the seconds of silence during which he sat up were painful to experience. “Blew it all up. Every last piece,” he said smugly, once he’d managed to prop himself up. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
Rhodes shook his head in amazement. “I cannot believe it. I cannot believe you . You really are invincible, aren’t you?”
“Made of iron,” said Tony, laughing again. Rhodes noticed one of his front teeth was chipped.
“They say you… they thought…”
“They thought I had a bomb implanted in me,” finished Tony. He pulled down the neck of the hospital gown, and Rhodes gasped. Almost exactly in the center of his chest was a large, round metal plate, glowing white-blue surrounded by rough pink scar tissue. “Nope. Just a fusion reactor. An arc reactor, to be specific. Like we have at the plant.” Tony’s hand dropped; the hospital gown remained slightly askew, the reactor poking out from the neckline. “Pretty neat, huh?”
“Oh my God,” repeated Rhodes, who wasn’t sure what else to say.
“It’s keeping the shrapnel out of my chest. Admittedly any electromagnetic device would have worked, but you know what I say, go big or go home. This time I decided to do both.” He laughed again, but this time, it sounded wrong, hollow. His eyes met Rhodes’ and he searched them, worriedly. “When can I go home?” he asked point-blank.
“Soon,” said Rhodes, reaching out and grasping his arm. “As soon as possible, buddy. They said… they said you need to stay here at least a week to stabilize.”
“See, no one told me that,” said Tony. “No one tells me anything around here.”
Rhodes shook his head. “It’s going to be fine, Tony. One week.”
Tony looked resigned. “Welp. I guess that’s not as long as three months, anyway.”
Rhodes looked around, found a small plastic chair that was too small, and dropped into it next to Tony’s bed. “What happened, man?” he asked softly.
Tony looked away, scratching his beard. “Nothing,” he said after a moment, shrugging and then wincing. “They wanted designs. I didn’t give it to them.”
“How’d you get out?”
“Magic.”
“Tony. I’m serious. What happened?”
Tony waved the hand with the IV in it lazily. “I don’t know. I did what I do. I built a weapon and I used it against them. You can’t… seriously expect to hold a weapons designer captive, give him the tools to make a weapon, and then not use it, right? So I used it. I trashed their stupid compound, I trashed everything…” He scowled. Rhodey noticed that his expression didn't reach the upper side side of his face; his eye was so swollen that it couldn't move, causing a strange asymmetry to all of Tony's expressions. “Those are my weapons.” He turned and looked at Rhodes. “Did you know that? Did you know they were using Stark tech?”
Rhodes hesitated, then nodded. “This is a different type of warfare than your dad dealt with, Tony. It’s different than anything we’re used to. Weapons get stolen and moved around a lot. It happens.”
Tony’s fist tightened, and the vein stood out. The heart monitor’s steady tattoo became slightly more frequent, more insistent. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d beat yourself up, man. Look. Your weapons give us the upper hand on these guys. If some of them end up on the other side… well, it happens. You’re doing us a solid, Tony. And your country appreciates it. There was no reason you had to know.”
“No reason?” repeated Tony. “ No reason ? Rhodey, that was my shit out there! All of it! They killed half my convoy with it. They could have killed you with it. And this…” He gestured toward his chest.
Rhodes squeezed his arm. “Tony. It’s not your fault. You’re an inventor, not a soldier. You can’t do anything different. Just… just focus on the good you’re doing for us, out there. Every kid that’s got one of your guns, that’s a kid that’s more likely to come home.”
“Or to get shot by one of the same guns,” said Tony bitterly. He reached up and picked at a small cut over his eyebrow. A small bead of red blood appeared.
“Tony, Stark Industries is helping us end this conflict. It is. I’m out there every day and I’ve seen what your weapons do. They’re the best shot we have, Tony.”
Tony nodded, looking suddenly exhausted. “I need a nap, Rhodey.”
Rhodes patted his arm. “Yeah. You rest. You need anything?”
Tony shrugged and winced. “I dunno. A bottle of whiskey, some nudie magazines, maybe a radio.”
“You got it, buddy.”
“James,” said Tony suddenly, sharply.
Rhodes looked at Tony. His bruised, swollen face was uncharacteristically serious.
“Seal my records.”
“What?”
“My medical records. Have them sealed. Have them destroyed.” Before Rhodes could answer, Tony added, “ Please. ”
Rhodes had never, not in his entire life, not in two decades of knowing Tony, had ever, ever heard him say please. He stared. That single word, more than any of the bruises, more than even the reactor glowing and embedded in the skin of Tony’s chest, scared him.
“Okay,” he said flatly.
Tony nodded, then closed his eyes. “Come back tomorrow,” he said wearily.
“I will. I promise,” agreed Rhodes. He stood and watched Tony. Within a minute, the heart monitor’s beeping slowed, and Tony’s face relaxed. Lying asleep in the bed, he looked smaller, and his face, without his grin, looked worn and haggard. The bruise on his right eye looked shiny and painful.
Rhodes made his way to the foot of the bed and picked up the chart hanging there. He was surprised to see it was only one page, and was mostly blank. Tony’s name was there, along with some sparse notes about the pain medication he’d been given. But there was little else. He flipped it over to make sure he wasn’t missing anything, but there was nothing else there.
Rhodes replaced the chart and made his way out door. Two men were waiting for him, along with the guard and the private.
“Well?” asked one of the men.
Rhodes shook his head. One of the men looked disappointed, but the other’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Nothing?”
“No sir,” said Rhodes.
“A man that smart and we’re supposed to believe it was dumb luck that he got out of that explosion alive?”
Rhodes stared back at him, blank-faced. “Even smart guys get lucky,” he said. He began walking; the men followed. “Anyway, I wouldn’t chalk it all up to luck. He knows his own weapons. He knew what he was doing when he blew the lid on that base.”
“And the fact that he was two miles away from the site, in that condition, surrounded by a pile of scrap metal?”
Rhodes considered this. “Honestly? Not the first time it’s happened,” he said, stepping into an antiquated elevator. He hit the button for the ground floor and shrugged at them as the door closed. “Ever been to Vegas with him?”
Rhodes made sure that he was alone before requesting the records.
“No,” said the doctor.
“What?”
“No,” repeated the doctor calmly. She had long, dark hair and was surprisingly pretty. She didn’t look up from the document she was writing in. Behind the desk, Rhodes could see piles of documents, and several chewed-up pens. There were no other office supplies, except for a styrofoam cup half-filled with coffee.
“I’m a lieutenant colonel and those records are—”
“—are not yours,” she finished firmly. Her English was impeccable, her accent giving it a pleasant lilt.
“Those records are part of a government investigation,” said Rhodes stubbornly.
“Those records are part of a patient’s private history and are not yours ,” she replied. “You think you’re the first guy in a uniform to ask for the records? No. I cannot give them to you.”
They squared off for a moment, looking at each other up and down. Rhodes was honestly not sure what to do; he’d been hoping his uniform would be enough to get Tony’s records from her.
Fortunately, at that moment, a man in scrubs that Rhodes recognized appeared. “Matthews!” exclaimed Rhodes gratefully.
The man’s face lit up. He leaned over the desk and shook Rhodes’s hand. “Lieutenant colonel,” he greeted Rhodes familiarly. “How’s Kunar been treating you?”
“It’s been a blast,” said Rhodes. The man burst out laughing, and after a moment Rhodes laughed too. The other doctor scowled.
“Matthews, I need a copy of some medical records for our patient on the sixth floor.”
The man’s face clouded. “Oh. Yeah,” he said uncomfortably.
“Am I missing something here?” demanded Rhodes.
“The patient requested that the records be sequestered and only released to James Rhodes,” protested the female doctor.
“That is James Rhodes,” said Dr. Matthews. The female doctor did a double-take. Rhodes tapped on his name tag: LT. COL. RHODES.
“Ohh,” she said. “I thought… streets.” She looked embarrassed, and Rhodes realized how odd his name must look at a non-native English speaker.
“It’s fine,” he assured her. “I didn’t introduce myself. I’m glad you’re keeping them safe.”
Dr. Matthews reached under the counter and pulled out a thick manila folder. “This is the only copy,” he said. “Everything from when they found him until now.”
“Who’s seen it?”
“I have, and he has,” said the female doctor.
“We’re the only two doctors here,” he explained.
“ What ?”
“Yep. We’re it,” said Matthews with a helpless grin and a shrug. “This isn’t even a real hospital. It’s an old orphanage for the mentally handicapped that was repurposed last month. We salvaged what we could, but…” He shrugged helplessly. “We’re making due. The locals have been going to the refugee camps that the Red Cross has set up. Honestly, I think they probably have a better thing going than us. But at least we’re not in a tent, so they send over all the surgeries to us. Mostly kids that have stepped on landmines and people with their intestines hanging out. That sort of thing.”
“Jesus,” said Rhodes.
The man nodded. “They say the conflict’s almost over, but from our perspective, it just keeps getting worse.”
"The conflict is never over,” said the female doctor bitterly, and scooping up her papers, she stormed off. Rhodes watched her disappear.
Matthews checked his watch. “I’ve got to go, Rhodey. I have forty patients to check up on before I can take a nap. Keep fighting the good fight for us, okay?”
“Thanks, Matthews,” said Rhodes grimly, tucking Tony’s folder under his arm. He walked away from the desk, and looked around. The building was not well cared for, and it showed in the water stains on the ceiling and the smudges on the cracked windows. Past them, a tank rumbled.
Rhodes turned and walked down the first-floor hallway. A family crouched in the hallway was sharing a meal on the floor while two people were having an argument in the room beyond them; a few doors down, a man was holding a bloody rag to his head, looking dazed, while the female doctor shone a light into his eyes. Rhodes’s stomach turned. He rarely had to see this side of war, and it made him uncomfortable.
He ducked into a janitor’s closet and closed the door behind him. He turned on the light, a single bulb, by tugging on the string attached to it, and opened up Tony’s files.
The first page was tight, neat handwriting that had a spikiness to it that was the only indication that the doctor who wrote it was in a rush.
Patient was found in the desert, it said. Blunt force trauma to the head, neck, back, shoulders. A broken clavicle, hairline fractures on the wrist.
Rhodes frowned. The preliminary examination looked like a motorcycle accident or something. None of the initial injuries listed looked like a man who had stumbled away from an explosion; they looked like a man going very fast and then stopping suddenly, as if smashing into a wall.
A few X-rays were pressed between the pages. Rhodes held them up to the light. The cracks were obvious, and he put the sheets back into the folder.
He turned the page. Extreme swelling of the right eye, it noted. The optic nerve appeared intact. A crack on the orbital that would heal. His vision was expected to return.
Seven broken teeth, the report continued. Rhodes wasn’t surprised; it looked like someone with rings had hit Tony in the face, and recently. Tony was vain, he knew. He would get his teeth fixed the moment he was back in Los Angeles.
Page three continued with the mouth. Tissue damage, it said. Scars on the inner cheeks. Rhodes re-read it, but it didn’t elaborate on how or why such scars would be in such a strange place until the next page. One word: glass.
It moved on, unfeeling, from this bombshell. Rhodes had the impression that the whole report was written in haste because it had a disjointed sort of methodology, as if they had examined him and treated him first and tried to write the report later from memory.
Malnourished, it said, unnecessarily. Fleas. Lice. An infection on the foot where a toenail had once been. Rhodes shuddered. Was that toenail pulled off or had it fallen off or had it been torn off accidentally? No matter what, it disgusted him, and he turned to the next page.
Scars on the back, observed the report. Recent, relatively deep marks consistent with whipping. Minor infections. Twenty-eight stitches on one wound, seventeen on another. Graft recommended on neck, it said, without explaining why. Fourteen stitches for a deep cut on the arm.
Severe sunburn, severe dehydration. Healed burns on the thighs, inner arms, and torso; cigarettes. Marks on the neck, likely from strangulation. Swelling of the shoulder joints due to recent dislocation, although the joint was currently back in place.
Rhodes’s stomach was twisting uncomfortably. He wanted information on the reactor in Tony’s chest; he had been curious about why Tony wanted the records sealed, but that was becoming apparent. He turned to the next page and was relieved to see a long report on the reactor.
Patient requires implant in chest to keep shrapnel from entering the heart, it said. An X-ray was tucked in; Rhodes held it up, and sure enough, shards like glass needles were clustered around the middle of Tony’s chest, bright white and gleaming, standing out from behind the edges of the circular reactor. According to the report, Tony’s sternum had been mostly destroyed. Some bone splinters left, it read, but none able to be removed. Heavy tissue damage and scarring around the reactor. Some discharge, mild infection. Antibiotics prescribed.
The medical records, disappointingly, did not shed much light on the reactor itself, other than its placement in Tony’s chest. It could not be taken out, read the report. It should not be taken out.
There were at least a dozen more pages of notes, alternating between the neat, spiky handwriting that had begun the report and being punctuated by larger, loopier handwriting. All the writing had clearly been done in a hurry.
Hesitating, Rhodes turned the page.
Patient prefers to be called Tony, began the page. Patient has a moderate limp favoring the right leg. Patient complains of headache.
He flipped to the next page.
Patient requested water; patient vomited shortly after, it read. Rhodes couldn’t imagine the frail, weak man in the hospital bed managing to make it through an entire examination. Tony put on a brave face, but the three months had taken its toll. He wondered how long the assessment had taken.
He flipped to the next page.
Penetrating rectal trauma, it read blandly. He re-read it, just to be sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. Evidence of multiple assaults. Seven stitches required, it continued professionally, in its clinical, unopinionated way.
Rhodes leaned against the wall, heart pounding, feeling sick.
Nine cracked ribs, six healing, surrounding implant. Three consistent with kicking, bruises to stomach.
Evidence of recent concussion. Patient unable to recall age or current U.S. president.
Patient refuses shower, claims phobia, cites waterboarding.
Trauma to hip.
Chemical burns.
Rat bites.
The list continued, detailing months of torture, months of brutal abuse. Rhodes suddenly remembered Tony’s casual remark about what had happened: nothing.
“They wanted designs. I didn’t give it to them.”
The weight of the plain manila folder in Rhodes’s hands took on a sinister feel.
Tony had been helpless. He had held on to the one thing he could: his ideas. He had turned those ideas against his captors and escaped. But the damage was done. His body’s scars formed a roadmap of resistance, a testament to an iron will and a stubborn refusal to quit. Tony had made himself into an impenetrable tomb where he’d buried his thoughts, and had used his own flesh to protect them. He had sacrificed himself, his identity, for the Stark legacy. It was heartbreaking to imagine, but Rhodes could picture it clearly. The enraged shouts of “no” that followed every time his head was pulled from the water; the shuddering gasps of “no” that punctuated every whiplash; the whispered chants of “no” while they pinned him down and burned him.
Tony Stark was an iron man. Tony Stark was a suit of armor. Tony Stark was unbreakable, as strong as his weapons, and he’d taken three months of torture to before taking everyone out in a single, glorious blaze of avenging fury. He was triumphant.
And all he had to show for it was pages and pages of impersonal reports detailing every last scar, bruise, and break in his body.
Rhodes turned to the last page:
Patient has difficulty sleeping d/t nightmares. Patient thrashes in sleep. Patient screams in sleep. Patient observed experiencing night terrors. Patient sedated to avoiding hurting self.
Patient reports medication makes him drowsy.
Patient reports inability move or feel right eye due to swelling.
Patient requests records be released to Lt. James Roads.
Patient asked for peppers.
Patient observed crying out of right eye.
- End -