Bloom

“Hmm, that could be a difficult question to answer neatly, young sir.”

They’ve long passed the point where Edwin would try to shelter his charge from harsh truths. There’s no point. The boy is far too intelligent, and the ugliness in the Stark home simmering too consistently under the surface to hide. He keeps his eyes focused on the detailed drawing Anthony is working on, though he feels Ana frown behind him.

She saves him nonetheless, as always.

“Think of it like a seedling.” She meets Anthony’s keen eyes with a warm smile.

“A beginning, a little seed of potential. Some are strong and determined, some are weak and need more attention to flourish. But there’s a possibility of growing into some absolutely beautiful.”

Jarvis and Ana both flinch at the sudden sound of shattering china from the parlour down the hallway, and Anthony thinks that potential probably isn’t enough.

He looks down at the curling yellow daffodil twisting around his wrist. Everyone says he should feel something when he looks at it, but he watched an episode of 3-2-1 Contact last week that stuck with him. The science of soulmates. Romantic. Platonic. Failed. Maybe if the Jarvises were his parents, he could believe it. Instead, he turns back to his paper, sighing as the sound of another broken glass echoes down the hall.

He fools around more or less discreetly at college. Times are changing, but lots of people still cling to romance over reality. He’s lucky his roommate is pretty progressive. Lucky in general, Rhodey is the raddest. They stay together after that first year in the dorms, becoming much too comfortable friends. They both drink straight from the milk carton. James gives Tony narrow eyes, touching his toothbrush and insisting it’s wet and Tony used it again (you-little-asshole) (you’re only four-inches-taller!).

(Tony totally did use the toothbrush. More than once.)

They share their soulmarks. James has two circling chickadees on his right shoulder blade.

“Oh my god, that’s fucking adorable. Gag me, you’re going to be cute.”

James rolls his eyes and pulls his t-shirt back on.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Let’s see yours, genius.”

Tony snorts and pulls off the ever-present red and yellow terry sweatband from his wrist. The skin underneath is a couple shades lighter from his arm. He holds it out and twists so James can see the whole thing.

“It’s... it’s kinda sad. Can a flower be sad? Geez, I imagined a circuit board or something.”

He grabs Tony’s hand and squeezes because like Jarvis and Ana before him, he gets it. Tony thinks it’s worth it that the whole soulmate shtick isn’t for him, because he gets to choose the stars in his sky and James Rhodes is definitely one of them.

The day is an absolute disaster. If he believed in magic, he’d wonder if this Tuesday was cursed. The shitshow kicked off with the morning news cycle featuring not one, not two, but five of their board members caught up in a scandal that put Tony’s worst nights to shame.

“I don’t understand how they even got that much jello into a limo. Even a Hummer limo? I mean, from the photos it looks like it set in there and—”

He jerks away from his phone at the choking noise coming from Pepper. One hand is clutching at her neck while the other scrambles through her purse and she kicks away the pastry the new intern had nervously delivered.

“Oh fuck!”

She thrusts the epipen into his hand and hikes up the edge of her pencil skirt and after it clicks he registers what he’s seeing. The two fat little birds circling each other on Pepper’s creamy skin. He chokes down the hysterical laugh crawling up his throat and helps her into the car with Happy to head to the hospital.

He texts his bestie to meet them there. James currently being in town is the one highlight to this shitty day, he thinks. He thinks it too soon, apparently, and jinxes them as traffic slows to a sudden stop.

“What’s going on, Happy?”

“We’re gonna detour, boss. Looks like someone just rear-ended a florist’s truck. Daffodils everywhere.”

Later, a grumpy Pepper is dressed in a hospital gown and snuggled into a bed in a private room, with Tony texting away in the world’s least comfortable chair when Happy leads Rhodey in.

The twin looks of utter disdain from Pepper and James when Tony introduces: “My platypus to his chickadee,” tells him this is one seed that’s going to take root. (Going to sprout? Shit, whatever, he’s not a botanist, but he is the gold standard of friends for getting these two together.)

The terry sweatband is long gone by the time the desert rolls around. Tony started using synthetic skin a few years ago, and it strikes him as odd that while they’re drowning him, he can appreciate the waterproofing on the patch around his wrist.

Yinsen has an instrument with delicate music notes trailing up his forearm. He sees Tony glance at it one evening and smiles.

“My wife taught me to play, though I never matched her skill.”

Rhodey finds him. He finds his genius idiot dying in the desert.

“How was the funvee?”

His genius idiot starts to cry, he does, too.

“Next time you ride with me.”

He helps him shave. Tony has a bum wrist, shaking hands, and a hunk of glowing metal in his chest.

“You’re gonna be mad at me, chickadee. At what I have to do.”

James huffs, hand steady holding the razor, “So what’s new?”

Between Pepper and James, they managed to talk him down from a bombshell—ha—of a press conference to something a little more palatable to the board. A cleaning of house, a repositioning of Stark Industries in defensive measures rather than weapons, a look to the future in clean energy and cutting edge technology. Iron Man.

They support him through everything and god, he just can’t do it alone. He wants to, and maybe if they didn’t have each other, if he didn’t have them, have Happy, have Ana in his heart, have Jarvis and JARVIS, he might try. But his sky is lit up with them, so he confesses:

“I’m dying, Rhodey.”

He should’ve expected the response.

“The fuck you are.”

Pepper cries, which makes Happy cry, and it’s really weepy and incredibly, uncomfortably emotional for a while before everyone dries their tears and gets to work. Tony tells them his plan, what he was planning, anyway. To step back, Pep as CEO, Happy by her side and keeping her safe. Rhodey taking his place in War Machine.

James looks over the design with an impressed look, quickly followed by a stern: “We are not painting it red.”

“But—!”

“No. Red.”

Tony pouts, honest-to-god, like a child, pouts. “But I’m dying.”

James and Pepper roll their eyes together, apparently that isn’t going to cut it. Because the fuck he is.

Pepper does step into the role of CEO and Tony steps back, but still needs an assistant he can trust. He’s always been popular with the employees, despite the fair-weather relationship the media has with him. When it comes to trust though, his heart is with R&D. Pepper was an exception, and the applications they get to fill the role run the gamut from promising to downright offputting. He ends up approaching one of his favourite ops managers from the arc reactor project instead. Yvette is a lifesaver and has more people skills than the average R&D staffer.

“Strategic Homeland what? Look, I don’t have time for this. *click*”

Although that’s not saying much.

Rhodes is on assignment with Stark Industries, ostensibly to convince Tony to reconsider his stance on weapons. They spend their time between finding a solution to the palladium problem and preparing for the worst. At the end of a long day in the lab, they’re going through some of Tony’s childhood belongings, the few keepsakes worth the memories attached. James ends up being the most sentimental about it, with Tony more interested in the future than the past and Yvette bringing a more clinical kind of attention.

“What is this?”

James holds up a drawing and Tony huffs a little laugh, remembering a kitchen conversation with the Jarvises and the sound of shattering glass.

“I used to sketch out things I found in Howard’s lab and office, try to build on them. That’s... huh.”

Yvette puts it under the magnifier lamp attached to the desk. “It’s an element, but I don’t recognize it. Do you remember anything else about the design?”

She also ends up being the one to place the new reactor into his chest, scoffing at Rhodes’ squeamishness and telling Tony to “quit complaining, because I’m pretty sure you’re not paying me enough for this.”

Through gritted teeth he responds, “You want a raise? If I survive this, I’ll give you the company card and you can buy whatever you want.”

“What if I want the new Celestron CGX-L when it comes out of development?”

Tony laughs and immediately regrets it.

“Are you seriously angling for a ten thousand dollar telescope while holding my life in your haaa-oly shit! That’s,” he sticks out his tongue, “wow, that tastes like coconut. And metal. Yvette, you can have all the telescopes you want. Platypus, what do you want? New car? High five? Hug?”

Rhodey stares at the revived glow in his chest and blinks, then smiles wide.

“You’re such a little asshole.”

When SHIELD approaches Tony, Yvette tells him an Agent Coulson wants to set up a meeting with their director. Rhodes is still on assignment for another two weeks and the only one with even tangential experience with the agency, so he fills them in and insists on coming along.

It’s clear when the three of them arrive that SHIELD was expecting... well, something other than what they’ve got.

Agent Coulson greets them and Tony has sized up enough business partners and rivals to note the tensing of his jaw as he takes in Rhodey and Yvette, as well as (and isn’t this strange) Tony himself.

He raises his brows over the edge of his Ray Bans. “Something the matter, Agent?”

A bland smile. “Of course not, this way, please.”

They’re led to a meeting room and Agent promptly makes his excuses and leaves.

Yvette frowns, “It’s poorly lit in here and they didn’t offer us any coffee or snacks.”

Tony nods sagely, meetings without coffee and snacks are sacrilegious in R&D, as they should be.

Rhodes leans in and looks over the report placed haphazardly on the table.

“Avengers Initiative.”

A throat clears behind them.

“I’m not sure I want you looking at that.”

And just, really? Tony takes a brief moment to appreciate the new, non-life threatening reactor in his chest, because he can’t imagine dealing with this while dying.

The man steps into the room, followed by three silent, armed agents who stand back to surround the table.

“I believe this meeting invitation was only issued to you, Mr. Stark. Your friend and assistant are welcome to wait outside.”

And, wow. Just. No.

Rhodey and Yvette stay. The director, Fury, tries his manipulation regardless. Tony thinks about how lucky he is, later, as Pepper and her soulmate laugh and laugh over the pinched look on Fury’s face at his rejection. That profile might have stung otherwise.

“Hey, JARVIS? How’s the uplink to SHIELD going?”

“File access at 12%, we remain undetected, Sir.”

He grins and sets to running decryption on what they have so far.

“Good job, buddy, keep it going.”