The Avengers won the war but at the cost of half the team. Bucky Barnes had been the first to die, Steve not long after as he dove after his friend who had fallen for a second time. Tony and Sam picked up the slack the two had left but ultimately Tony ended up falling too, Bruce not long after. Sam was lucky to make it out alive and, at the request of the current president, he has been handed the mantle of Captain America. He hadn’t wanted it, he even tried to claim he didn’t deserve it, but everyone knew by now that Sam Wilson was just as good a person as Steve Rogers, and he would be a more than worthy predecessor.
The only reason they had all even been able to defeat Thanos and his army was thanks to the last minute addition of the Guardians of the Galaxy, or that’s what they called themselves. That and the combined power of Wanda and Thor. Whatever new lightening powers Thor had they were effective, and once Vision went down Wanda let all hell break loose. Between those two and the Guardians, and even then Drax and Rocket hadn’t made it out alive, they managed to win.
Now though the world was devastated. Their new Captain America wore the shield with a heavy heart, there were no replacements for most of the rest of the team members, Thor had had to return to his displaced people, and Wanda had no idea how to deal with yet another loss in her life. Rhodey didn’t know how to deal with his best friend’s loss either. He had been watching all of this happen from a secure location and nothing in his life hurt more than watching his best friend of near thirty years fall from the sky with a smoking trail behind him. Sometimes he wondered if Tony felt the same way about him when he fell from the sky, if his heart caught in his throat until he knew for sure what happened to him.
He knew the answer was yes, but Tony got the relief of knowing Rhodey didn’t die. He wasn’t so lucky. Even if there was a question of whether or not Tony lived having a fifty story building fall on him moments after he left a crater in the ground where he and his suit landed certainly cleared things up for him and everyone else watching. Rhodey has never been one to give up- it wasn’t in his nature- but after Tony died it took weeks for him to get out of bed properly and the only reason he did so was because Sam prodded him out of bed. It was something for both of them to do, he guessed, with Sam making sure Rhodey did things and Rhodey resisting Sam as much as he could.
Truthfully he didn’t even know how Sam ended up in his bunker, how he even knew where he was, or why he cared enough about someone he met once before that and it ended in an argument over the Accords. But he was grateful nonetheless.
*
“They want me to make some kind of public speech tomorrow,” Sam says quietly. Brooklyn Nine Nine plays in the background as they sit around their scattered Chinese food that Rhodey was too lazy to clean up properly. He still couldn’t walk much though he could, on good days, walk a few steps on his own. Sam was still working on rehabilitation and had taken over a lot of Tony’s tech not that Rhodey had reacted well to that at first. Technology was so personal to Tony, it was part of who he was and if it wasn’t for Sam meddling in his lab before Rhodey could stop him nothing in that room ever would have changed. Kind of like a parent who has lost a kid, Rhodey guessed, he wanted to keep everything that was distinctly Tony in the same condition. He eventually got used to Sam tinkering in the lab though and sometimes, if it didn’t hurt too much to be reminded of his loss, he went down there too.
“You know you’ll do fine,” Rhodey tells him softly. Sam had a way with people and with words. Steve Rogers had been loud about his opinions, and pushy too. Sam was vocal but he had a soft, quiet power to it. He was more subtle in his presence and Rhodey couldn’t think of a better replacement for Steve. Certainly not fucking Barton, who was probably the only other option on the Avengers team next to Natasha. He didn’t think people would respond well to having someone who was, technically anyways, Russian as their national icon though.
Sam sighs, “I don’t know man. I’m not… I was never meant to be Captain America, I’m not even enhanced,” he says, shaking his head.
That didn’t matter to anyone and Sam damn well knew it. The problem wasn’t that he didn’t think he’d live up; he was just guilty that he’d have to. “Sam, we all know what the US army did when they lost Steve, how many black men suffered so they could try and recreate the super soldier serum. Its only right that a black man picks up that mantel after all we went through when the government used us as guinea pigs to recreate what they lost- we earned that history, you earned that history after all you’ve been through and all you’ve sacrificed. You are not unworthy, Sam.” It was amazing, watching the way people looked up to Sam, how revered he was as Cap. Rhodey didn’t think he’d see anything like it after his own achievements as a hero but seeing Sam in his new uniform drew crowds that broke records. It was a big win for their community and they knew it.
For a long few moments Sam sits with this, “it just doesn’t feel right to take over his position. It’s like wearing something that doesn’t quite fit.”
Rhodey wasn’t unaccustomed to the feeling. “Than don’t bother trying to be Steve Rogers, that’s not who you are. Sam Wilson is good enough. Sam Wilson made history; Sam Wilson changed the world when he put that suit on. Steve had to do something first- all you had to do was pick up the shield. Don’t sell yourself short, what you symbolize as Captain America is something totally different than Steve and that’s a good thing. Embrace it.” Seeing Sam pick up the mantel was probably the only good thing to happen to him in the year since Tony died. When he was a kid in the eighties he thought he was always going to see black men as the villains in movies, but now they were the heroes, he was a hero, and now Sam Wilson was Captain America. Changes like that weren’t the kind he’d ever thought he’d see.
Sam obviously isn’t buying the argument though and he huffs out a sigh. “And what if someone came along and took up Tony’s place, huh? Would you feel so open about this then?” He doesn’t say it to me an asshole, Rhodey can tell, he just wants to demonstrate his point but it annoys him nonetheless.
“If someone came along that was worthy of his spot then yeah, I’d be fine with it. No one will ever be Tony Stark, but Tony and Iron Man aren’t the same no matter how much he claimed they were.” Tony was far more than he ever gave himself credit for, even at his worst. Iron Man was something Tony did, a legacy Tony made, but Iron Man wasn’t the same as Tony Stark. Tony was softer, more broken, less heroic, and far braver than Iron Man had ever been. Tony lived through things Iron Man couldn’t imagine, and Iron Man really only served as a shell to house the man behind the scenes anyways. If someone was worthy enough to wear a suit Rhodey wouldn’t be opposed to it, but they had to be worthy of picking up where Tony left off just like Sam was worthy of Steve’s mantel. Few would be able to live up to Steve, and Sam just might be the only one to do better.
“Do you really believe that?” Sam asks, obviously shocked.
Rhodey nods, “someone will do it, it’s only a matter of time before that spot is filled. We’ll all know when that person comes around- there’s not many that can do what Tony could.”
*
Rhodey had accompanied Sam to his speech when he saw the newspapers- the ones saying that a fifteen year old girl had supposedly reverse engineered Tony’s suit. As much as Rhodey had believed his words to Sam it still hurt to see someone do what Tony could, but it made him determined to find the kid responsible.
*
When Rhodey tracks Riri Williams down he finds her in an MIT lab welding a piece of a suit that, to her credit, looked quite a lot like Tony’s. “Guess the stories were true,” he says and Riri nearly drops the piece of suit she’s working on. “Holy shit that’s Captain America,” she says, looking over Rhodey’s head at Sam.
“See?” Rhodey says, “I told you it made a difference. Now Riri, mind if I take a look at your armor?” he asks,
She lifts her welding mask and leans forward almost protectively over the suit piece she is working on, “if you think you’re going to take this from me you’ve got another thing coming,” she says, giving him a hard stare.
Rhodey smiles an lets out a sound that’s halfway between a laugh and a sob because she reminded him so much of Tony both at that age and how she was protective of her tech. “Relax,” he says when he gets himself together, “I don’t want to take your suit. I want you to improve it.”
*
Riri didn’t want the Iron Man mantel, or at least she didn’t when she made the suit. She just wanted a challenge, something to test her intelligence in ways that she hadn’t been tested before. It was hard to find a challenge when you were as smart as she was and there was no better place to start than Tony Stark’s technology. Stark was top of the line- there was no one better and Riri strived for greatness. If she beat the best then she was the best.
Reverse engineering the suit took a year, far more time than it had taken Tony to build his first model of his suit, and she got the feeling it was far less efficient than Tony’s had been. When she tested out the flying capabilities she didn’t expect someone to catch her doing it and she sure as hell didn’t expect news to spread, especially not as far as it did. Within a week James Rhodes and Sam Wilson had shown up at her lab and a month after that she was flying in the air doing exercises that were apparently supposed to make her a halfway decent hero. She got to met Spider Man too, and the regular time with Captain America (!!!) was pretty sweet.
Rhodey was far more… reserved than Sam and Peter though, his presence was quieter in her life. He’d help with her suit, giving her engineering pointers, telling her how Tony solved some of his issues with his suit and with Rhodey’s suits, but he wasn’t as involved as Sam and Peter were. She wonders as time stretches on, especially as she flies out with Sam on a more minor problem that consisted of a straggling Doombot wandering the streets of New York taking out hot dog stands, only to come back to Rhodey being more distant than usual.
It takes her some time but she eventually corners him, something that wasn’t hard to do considering he could hardly run away, and plants herself in front of him. “You don’t think I’m a worthy successor for Tony,” she says bluntly. It’s always been her style- dancing around what she really meant was useless to her and it took up time she’d rather spend doing other things. So she just got straight to the point because she wanted to know why Rhodey would put his time, not to mention the time of other Avengers, into someone he clearly didn’t think was a good fit.
Rhodey just looks shocked though and he shakes his head, “Riri, I don’t think that at all. Like at all.”
He means his words, she can tell, but it doesn’t explain his distance. “So then why do you spend as little time with me as possible? Seems contrary to thinking I’m at least a half way decent replacement for Tony,” she says. He flinches when she says replacement but she wasn’t going to take it back now. She’d never be Tony Stark, she didn’t have any interest in being him, she wanted to be better- to be her.
Rhodey opens his mouth and then closes it again before sighing. “You remind me of him, you know. It’s hard to watch, especially,” his voice cracks and he has to stop for a moment to gather his emotions. He takes a deep breath, “I can practically hear Tony’s advice to you, I can see how the two of you would have gotten along. He would have loved you,” he says softly.
Riri wasn’t so sure she believed that, “he kind of struck me as a sexist prick, to be honest,” she says and Rhodey lets out a sharp laugh.
“He sort of was, but he grew out of it when he realized what an asshole he was being. It took time but… well he was stubborn- you couldn’t tell Tony Stark nothin’. He was a lot like you, you know- well; you’re a lot like him. Your both blunt, incredibly intelligent, talented, caring, and lonely. Every time I see you I see him too, and then I see more. I don’t think you’re unworthy, I think you’ll do things even Tony could have only dreamed of and it hurts to know someone will outgrow his legacy and make one of their own. But he wouldn’t be sad about it- he liked to say he was a futurist and, well, you’re the future,” he says.
She hadn’t been expecting… that. “You think he’d actually think that, that I’m the future?” she asks. She didn’t act like it maybe, mostly because she wanted to be better than what Tony had been, but he was her idol at least in respect to his inventing abilities. His personal life left plenty to be desired but his inventions? When she was a kid she used to dream of having his life with all his riches, appreciation, and glory- all of it earned by her intelligence. It helped her get through boring school days when he teachers gave her trouble over and over again for not sitting still, or blurting out answers in class, or whatever. It took a long time for people to realize she was so disruptive because she was so smart she blew past all her other classmates and the material was boring. Once teachers realized she was bored, not stupid, she flew through grades at a rapid speed and now she was doing an undergraduate degree at MIT.
Her life, minus a few details, had mirrored her idol’s nicely and he had to admit that the Tony Stark lifestyle, minus all the depression and drinking, actually sounded pretty cool. But was Rhodey right in saying he’d actually want that? He was sort of known for being pretty arrogant, especially around his inventing, so would he actually be happy that someone had the potential to take his work to the next level or would he be irritated that someone outdid him? She wasn’t sure and Tony was dead so she couldn’t exactly ask.
Rhodey nods though, “yeah, he would think that. He loved his work, and he knew he was the best, but if he ever had to live with the fact that he was the best there was ever going to be he would have been really disappointed. He always wanted something bigger, better, more interesting, more efficient, something new, something that would change the world. Trust me when I say that you are all that and then some.”
Riri smiles, caught off guard by the compliment, the one Rhodey genuinely meant, and nods. “I don’t know about that last bit. I’m good, but I’m not that good,” she says.
He shakes his head, “don’t ever sell yourself short kid- you’ve done things by fifteen that Tony needed another two decades to do. Don’t you ever act like that isn’t impressive because it is. Maybe you haven’t surpassed his technology yet, but you will. That’s a guarantee after seeing what you can do and how fast you learn.”
Yeah, she totally could do better. And she would too, because she wasn’t in the interest of playing second best to anyone.
*
Sam had found some files that he thought were important but he couldn’t crack the encryption so he had passed it off to Riri at Rhodey’s suggestion. He had said that she needed to learn how he coded things; how he used technology in general if she was going to surpass it. So she set to work on the encryption, breaking it in record time much to Sam’s annoyance. What took him weeks only took her a few hours thanks to her familiarity with Tony’s work and, apparently, an affinity for it. What she finds, though, isn’t what she expected.
Had she known what was in the files before she alerted Sam she probably wouldn’t have told him she got in so soon. Tony had left videos to people he cared about- there were five to Rhodey alone, but Sam had one too, and Steve even though he was dead. What had thrown her though was the one labeled ‘to whoever is next’. It was a video like the rest but she had no idea what it meant until she clicked on it, sure that she wasn’t invading anyone’s privacy given that there was no name on the video, and the video begins to play.
Tony’s face pops up on his (very cool) holograph screens and he smiles. “I have no idea who you are, or even if you know who I am. For all I know I didn’t end up being that important and people forgot about me. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I probably am still famous, and you’re probably looking into building my suit if you haven’t succeeded already. I hope you succeed, god knows the world needs you. But a piece of advice? Don’t ever let this be your whole life; you need something outside of this. For a long time I thought this was who I was and I let a lot of things in my life fall to shit because of it. Don’t do that because when you fail as a hero, and you will, you’re not going to have anyone to go back to and it’s going to suck. And you’ll do your best to keep your emotions out of the field but you’ll drag that shit everywhere whether you want to or not. So build my suit, make it better, be a hero, but remember to be happy too. I forgot to do that and I suffered for it- it probably ruined my life. Learn from my mistakes and do better. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to the world if you’re going to be saving it.”
The video cuts out and Riri sits back in her- previously Tony’s- chair and mulls over his words. Every time I see you I see him, and then I see more. Rhodey’s words come back to her as she considers Tony’s speech. Happiness had never come easy to her- living in her own head was easier than living in the real world, but she wasn’t the type to repeat other’s mistakes. She wanted to improve on something, not go through what someone else did only to come to the same conclusion so she makes herself a promise just as Sam arrives in the lab.
*
Peter was hilarious, and pretty smart too, so Riri liked spending time with him. Plus his friends were awesome. “Have you seen today’s headline?” Michelle asks, all but throwing herself into a seat at the table she, Ned, and Peter were currently occupying.
“No,” she says, “what’s it say?” Michelle shoves the paper at her with an enthusiastic look on her face that clearly indicated something was going on but she didn’t know what. Normally she’d find this sort of thing irritating- she didn’t like playing games around what was going on or whatever, she just wanted to know but she had also promised herself that she’d do her best to do things outside of her work and that meant learning how to deal with people. And besides, Michelle was nice, funny, and unafraid to call people on their shit. All were traits Riri enjoyed.
She reads over the headline and rolls her eyes, passing the paper off to a now even more curious Peter. Ned shoves himself into Peter’s personal space to read it with him and Peter has the same reaction she had. “Isn’t it great?” Michelle says.
Riri frowns, “I don’t see how some idiot ranting about black people taking over superheroes is a good thing,” she says and Michelle snorts.
“It isn’t, but come on, you have to admit that that’s funny. In like, an ironic way,” she says.
“Personally I think after building America while being kept as slaves means we should take over whatever the hell we want but that’s just me,” she says, picking up the cup of her tea and taking a drink of it as Peter, Ned, and Michelle start laughing. It takes her a second to realize she accidentally referenced that meme with the frog, the muppet thing. She hates muppets- they’re creepy even when they’re drinking tea.
“Exactly,” Michelle says. “And honestly, white guys still have movies and all that so they can deal with it.”
“They’ve got me too,” Peter points out, “and Thor. And Clint. And Scott. And the other Peter- Quill. I mean they’ve got a lot still and Riri is the only black lady so I mean who’s taking over what?”
“Yeah,” Ned says, “but your trans so these people would probably be all ‘the gays are taking over superheroes too! The gay agenda!’” he says in a mocking tone, flailing his arms around.
Riri laughs, “Someone might want to tell them that Sam might be interested in Rhodey. I swear those two are dating,” she says. Michelle drops her cookie and leans in.
“Holy shit I need all the drama on that. I can’t believe I’m talking to real superheroes about real superhero drama. Seriously, lay it on me,” Michelle says, gesturing for Riri to continue.
She looks over at Peter, who shrugs, “I think they’d be cute. We should maybe try to set them up.”
“We are not going to set them up, they’re grown men, they can set themselves up,” she tells them. Ned looks crestfallen but she had faith that Sam and Rhodey would figure things out if they were really interested in each other. Neither of them were stupid men; they would do just fine without their help.
“Can we get back to Captain America being a queer black man because that’s important. Tell me everything you know,” Michelle tells them, leaning forward in interest.
Riri shakes her head as Peter launches into several stories about Sam’s sexuality that Riri had no idea existed until the present moment. She had her suspicions of course, but it wasn’t her place to say anything. Peter, on the other hand, had known Sam for some time and had some hilarious stories to tell. Michelle takes it all in with a genuine interest and Riri makes a note to ask Rhodey some questions when Peter mentions something about Tony being bisexual as well. That had her curious given that she’s recently learned she didn’t actually know much of anything about who Tony Stark really was.
She did, however, decide that Tony’s name wasn’t going to be her own. Aside from the obvious gender not matching hers she thought Iron Man could use some rebranding. The name she was going to go by was now Ironheart and Rhodey thought it was brilliant.