"If this gets us killed, I'm finding a way to bring us back to life so I can kill you again."
“Christ Rhodey, no need to be so dramatic.”
Tony has Rhodey blindfolded, and is steering him through the warehouse, to the emergency exit that leads to an overgrown, nearly empty field. Nearly empty.
"We're almost there, anyway,” says Tony.
They finally get outside, the lingering warmth from the summer bringing out a glow in their skin, lighting up the sight before them even brighter than it was when Tony was working on it.
Tony removes the blindfold, and Rhodey takes in the sight before him.
The single tree, which before, dying, had looked so sad, has been transformed into what's more than just a treehouse. The tree itself has been reinforced with metal going up the sides, but not covering the whole thing, so you can still see the natural wood. The house part is part metal as well, but also using wood to look more like a normal treehouse (though there's no normal treehouse that has that modern geometric shape that Tony's built his to have).
“Do you like it?” asks Tony, eager, but rubbing his hands over each other subtly— a nervous tic.
"It's gorgeous." says Rhodey, and Tony beams.
“Do you wanna go inside? It's cool,I swear."
He leads him up the ladder (I was going to have an elevator, Tony says, but treehouses are supposed to have ladders.)
When he gets to the top, Tony smiles. and pulls Rhodey the rest of the way up, wincing when he pulls something in his arm.
Rhodey frowns in concern.
“You alright? Your heart?”
“Fine. You're just heavy.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Stop worrying. Now look!”
The treehouse interior is completely wood (or at least, it looks like wood), and is lit by string lights on three of the four walls.
The fourth wall has a workbench, which Tony rushes over to, grinning at Rhodey before flipping the bench over itself, revealing a red cushioned seat.
Of course it would be red.
He sits down, and pats the space on the seat next to him.
“We can both fit,” he informs Rhodey, “I checked.”
“I believe you,” says Rhodey, and sits down.
It's a tight fit, but they can indeed both sit comfortably enough, and the seat doesn't creak at their shared weight.
Rhodey looks to his left, to a small shelf built into the wall, picking up a framed picture of the two of them from a beach trip they took at 14, depicting both grinning broadly at the camera, eyes squinting into the sun.
Next to it is a smaller photo of Tony and his father, Howard, and it's a cute photo at a glance, but thinking too hard about it makes him sad.
“I remember this,” he says about the beach photo, and puts it back, smiling at Tony.
“This whole place is amazing,” he says, still smiling.
“So you like it?”
“I love it.”