Tony sits in a hospital room with an ice pack to his nose; Hope on one side, and some guy in a wheelchair who looked pretty beat up on the other side. “So uh, looks like we’re going to be here for awhile. What happened to your nose?” the guy in the wheelchair asks unexpectedly.
“His own stupidity,” Hope answers and Tony rolls his eyes.
“I was trying to make rocket boots and they uh… went wrong,” he says, remembering the way he flew up and smacked into his lab wall. The guy in the wheelchair laughs and shakes his head.
“Oh my god, seriously?” he asks.
Tony nods. “So what happened to you?” he asks, eyeing up the scrapes and the remnants of a bloody nose.
“Parkour,” he says casually and Tony raises an eyebrow.
“In a wheelchair? Wait, is that how you ended up in a wheelchair?” he asks. That would suck.
Wheelchair guy rolls his eyes, “yes, in a wheelchair. Believe it or not we can do some pretty incredible things on wheels, you just have to know what you’re doing. You’d probably break something before I did. But no that’s not how I ended up in a wheelchair, that was a skydiving accident gone wrong,” he says.
“That’s way worse than rocket boot smacking me face first into my ceiling,” Tony says.
“Nah. I’ve always been an adrenaline junkie and I knew one day I’d break my spine, I just didn’t expect it to happen at twenty one and I wasn’t about to whine and cry about being in a wheelchair so I figured out how to do stuff in it,” he says easily enough. “Think you can make me rocket wheels?” he asks.
Tony throws back his head and laughs, thankful that his face was too numb to feel the pain that was bound to cause. “I’d have to get the boots right first,” he says. “But the parkour thing, is that legit?”
This earns him another eye roll, “yes, it’s legit. I have videos,” he says and pulls out his phone. For the next half an hour he, Hope, and James Rhodes- Tony immediately takes a liking to his nickname ‘Rhodey’- watch incredible videos of him doing all sorts of flips and things in a wheelchair. He notices Tony watching the chair in particular, the mechanics of it, and asks about it. Tony tells him he’s an engineer and he was curious about modifications to the chair itself. Most of that, Rhodey says, was a mix of figuring out how to move in the chair and then finding a material that could withstand being beat up. Apparently he had friends who were happy to experiment and between them all they managed to find the right modifications and Rhodey happened to have an engineering degree himself so they all just made his chair instead of buying one.
“That’s pretty badass. I tried to go sky diving once with this one and passed out live four times,” he says, barely exaggerating as he points at Hope.
“He likes driving fast, doing weird stunts in planes, and rocket boots apparently but sky diving and theme parks? Too far,” Hope says, shaking her head. His ex, Steven, thought the same thing but he thought spinal surgery was fun so he was obviously demented.
“Control,” Rhodey says and Tony raises an eyebrow. “That’s the difference. Control. He can control a car and a plane and rocket boots but he can’t predict what a roller coaster might do if something goes wrong. My guess is that he was strapped to you when sky diving so he probably doesn’t trust you to save his life, or he trusts himself more. I have a friend like that, Phil. He’s a real stickler for making sure he has as much control as possible but still does some really crazy stuff,” he says.
Tony sits back in his chair grumpily as Hope starts laughing about his being psychoanalyzed by some guy in the damn emergency room. “That’s not at all true. I let Steven drive,” he says and Hope rolls her eyes.
“One time and you claimed he nearly sent you over a cliff so you never let him drive again. To be fair I don’t blame you, his driving is terrifying. Also I am deeply offended that you don’t trust me to save your ass. You didn’t die sky diving, did you?” Hope asks.
“No but we almost landed in a freaking tree so clearly you suck at landing in a parachute. I was right not to trust you,” he says and whines when she smacks his arm.
They continue to chat back and forth until Tony is finally called back to reset his poor nose. When he gets back out Rhodey is already gone, which is disappointing. Hope insists on food and coffee and Tony pretends he only agrees to appease her but he also really wanted coffee. His nose was starting to hurt without the ice and he could guarantee his face was all bruised and weird looking now.
*
Rhodey hadn’t intended on just about busting his face on that ramp but he had so now he was in the hospital to see if his exposed forearm would need stitches for the cut he got or if he could be cleaned up and sent home. As it turned out it was the latter, but he did get the good fortune of running into one Tony Stark. He’s heard about the guy of course, you’d have to live under a rock to not know about him by now given that he was the son of a millionaire, he got betrayed by his business partner, and he took on terrorists and won once. If Rhodey had to aspire to be as badass as someone he’d either pick Eugene Bullard or Tony Stark depending on the kind of badass he was going for.
Most days he just went for his own style, which was easy when you could do the kinds of things he could in a chair though he could do without the weird amount of surprise that came with it. People never acted this surprised back when his legs still worked right but he dealt with it pretty much the same way he dealt with it when Tony had given him that shocked and disbelieving look. He showed him the proof and made him feel like a right ass for thinking he was lying for some reason. Once they were past that though Tony was great and his lady companion was lovely too. He had been somewhat disappointed when Tony left because he knew that he was probably next to be called in and Tony’s broken nose meant he was going to be in there for some time but Hope had lived up to her name and slipped him Tony’s number.
When he told this story to Clint and Phil they had all but jumped on it, telling him to go for it and invite Tony a show of sorts they were putting together this weekend. “You think that’s a good idea?” he asks somewhat hesitantly. He had no idea how Tony would feel about his friends hitting on him in his place, for all he knew Tony would be pissed at Hope for handing out his number. Phil about ate Rhodey’s ass when he did that with Clint even if it paid off in the end.
“Duh,” Clint says, “if being a total badass doesn’t get you a second date I don’t know what will.”
“It worked for Clint,” Phil says, smiling at him in a totally disgusting and entirely unnecessary way.
Rhodey rolls his eyes at them and tells them that he’d consider it.
*
Tony doesn’t expect to get a call from a random number and he probably wouldn’t have answered it if he didn’t recognize the number but he wasn’t paying attention because he was working on the math of a new project. He was positive he had that mini arc reactor figured out but the damn phone call interrupts his thought process. “What?” he snaps into the phone, irritated.
“Uh. This Tony Stark?” the voice on the other end asks and Tony squints, not recognizing the voice.
“Who is this?” he asks instead of answering.
“Names Clint Barton, I’m a friend of James Rhodes’ and because he’s too chicken shit to call you his damn self I thought I’d give you a call and see if you were free this weekend for a date,” he says.
That… was not what Tony was expecting. He was expecting a call from Pepper and about twelve investors, not a date from a friend of someone he met in a hospital after fucking around with some rocket boots. “Um. How did you get my number?” he asks.
“Some lady named Hope gave it to Rhodey and I stole it from him to call you,” Clint explains.
Tony has seen that meme- Peter showed it to him once- about friends hitting on the person for you but he didn’t expect to live it. Peter was going to love this when Tony tells him. “I uh… what kind of date?” he asks, remembering how he and Rhodey got along.
“A fun one dumbass. For real though it’s sort of this show thing we put on for people to essentially show off and you should come, Rhodey’s got some neat new stunts,” he says casually. Tony, because he wanted an excuse to miss his Board meetings on Saturday, agrees. Pepper has been telling him he needed to get out anyways.
*
Tony had spent a good hour on the phone arguing with Pepper about the date thing but she eventually let him frolic and be free, thank god. He really needed to give her a raise for putting up with his bullshit. Clint meets him when he gets to the venue and grins, “you’re going to love this,” he says and leads Tony through the space to a decent spot to watch whatever was about to come.
When he spies Rhodey a few other people have gone through their routines, all of them impressive, so Tony was curious about what Rhodey was going to do. He’d seen the videos of Rhodey doing crazy stuns but that sort of paled in comparison when he watched a guy in a wheelchair do a backflip right in front of him. Tony had been impressed with the ability to do weird flips and shit with legs, but essentially turning a mobility device into a stuntmobile was next level impressive. That meant a whole new set of things to consider when considering flips, turns, that handstand thing Rhodey somehow managed, and landings. Rhodey wipes out a few times too, but that’s to be expected when you land on wheels and he seems to do just fine considering they met in the emergency room less than a week ago.
He sends a few pictures of the event to Pepper, who had sent back a message about him finding someone as reckless and ridiculous as himself- of course. Tony thought Rhodey was a total badass though and he wanted to know more. Thankfully Rhodey did too when he found out his friends had gone behind his back to hook him up on a date. “They usually aren’t this nosey, I swear. I am so sorry for this,” Rhodey says, waving an arm around.
“Hope basically did the same thing so I’m not offended,” Tony points out. “Your show was awesome, I have no idea how you did any of that but it looked cool,” he says.
Rhodey shrugs, “I did this stuff all the time with legs, I wasn’t giving it up because they don’t work right anymore,” he says.
“So you have some function, then?” Tony asks, wondering if this was at all appropriate. Usually he didn’t care but he actually liked Rhodey so he didn’t want to offend the guy.
“Some yeah, but I’ll never walk again and the movement is limited at best,” he says. He doesn’t look offended but Tony had to guess he’d be good at hiding it by now even if he was.
“Huh. So uh, how did you end up taking up stunts in a chair if you don’t mind me asking? I know you said it was something you did before you got hurt but the way you move would be totally different now and you have essentially another appendage to figure out how to move given how you use the chair to get around,” he says, looking over Rhodey’s chair.
Rhodey laughs, “everyone asks so no, I’m not offended. It can get old given that I have to repeat myself a lot but most people don’t really consider the chair a body part. I mean it is, the way I move doesn’t happen without it so it is essentially like a new limb but what drew you to that conclusion, if you don’t mind me asking?” he asks, mimicking Tony’s easier words with a smile.
Tony smiles back, “common sense mostly. I use my legs to get around, you use wheels, it’s the same concept. I’ve never had to use a mobility aide but I mean it seems silly to assume it’s something separate from you when you use it so much in daily life,” he points out.
“You could argue cell phones are the same thing, would you?” he asks, head tilted to the side.
“Yes and no. I mean yes cell phones act like a way to extend our voices so in a way they’re like a new limb but they usually don’t replace the function of a limb, they extend it. Your chair replaces the function of your legs, cell phones don’t replace voices. The exception is mute people I suppose, or other people who don’t necessarily talk for whatever reason.” Groot, a friend of a friend, was like that. He knew a few words but had a hard time getting them out. It had floored Tony that no one thought to either teach Groot sign language or give him a damn computer or something but Rocket hopped right on it and Groot learned fast. He also enjoyed being able to communicate with more than one friend given that only Rocket understood what his facial expressions meant.
Rhodey smiles, “good answer. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who think I can just walk out of this thing and be ‘normal’ whatever that is. One guy used a cell phone comparison, hence the question,” Rhodey explains.
Tony rolls his eyes, “that’s not even remotely the same. It’s not like phones replaced all previous forms of communication, they just created new ways to communicate. That’s nothing like a damn wheel chair, or I guess it isn’t?” he asks more that says to Rhodey.
“It isn’t,” Rhodey confirms. “Most people don’t get the limb thing though, they treat the chair like it’s separate from me, it’s weird to find someone who didn’t do that right off the bat.”
Tony shrugs, “well you use it like a limb, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be considered one,” he points out.
“It’s not organic,” Rhodey says.
“So? Neither are other prosthetics and we consider those replacement limbs. Personally I think the human hang up on organics is totally overrated,” Tony says, grinning.
Rhodey snorts, “of course the tech mogul would think that. I guess you probably have a pretty weird relation to things that aren’t organic too.”
That’s how they end up talking about Tony’s bots, and JARVIS, and all the other projects Tony was working on. He doesn’t mean to take up so much time talking about tech but Rhodey is engaged in the conversation and he asks questions and understands Tony’s answers too. Whatever his engineering background he’s smarter than the average person, Tony decides, because even most engineers couldn’t keep up with him. Hope’s assistant Scott got lost in the first five seconds of his conversation with Pepper about one of his new clean energy products and he had a Masters degree in engineering.
Tony learns that Rhodey had a PhD in the subject and that he also had an interest in clean energy. “I keep up with your stuff if I’m honest though I don’t really pay attention to you personally. The media likes to gossip and I have no time for that mess, I prefer my gossip to be about people can talk shit about later and have other people actually know who I’m talking about. Still, you’ve come out with some impressive things in the last couple years,” Rhodey says.
He nods, “I’ve always had an interest in the subject but I was told there was no money in it so I never pursued it. Then… well I’m sure you heard about that Afghanistan mess and all that. I came back and decided to make myself useful to the world.” It had been a hard transition but one that was worth it, at least to him. Plenty of other people liked to tell him he ruined his life but he thought he was doing fine, more than fine really. It didn’t matter what others thought in the end, plus his company was still the most profitable tech company in the world so everyone else could suck it.
“Yeah I did hear about that Afghanistan thing. You almost died and almost got blown up by your own bombs only to escape terrorists in the end. That’s some pretty badass stuff,” Rhodey says. “And then you came back and roasted yourself in a press conference and basically tore down you’re entire life to rebuilt it again. That’s brave.”
Tony raises an eyebrow because it wasn’t what he would call brave. “It was necessary, not brave. I did what needed to be done. Some people claim I’m some kind of hero for it but doing what’s right isn’t heroism in my opinion. My not selling weapons that have no other use than murder shouldn’t be a mark of progress. Real progress is making a change when you’re in good standing, not what I did.” It’s more honest than he means it to be and Rhodey can tell because he considers himself for a moment.
“‘If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound,’” Rhodey says and Tony nods.
“Yeah, exactly. Wait, why does that sound familiar?” he asks.
Rhodey smiles, “Malcolm X said it.” Tony grins and they start a whole new discussion about progress, specifically Tony’s supposed progress, and why Tony took issue with the way people touted him as some kind of hero when he wasn’t.
*
Rhodey was about ninety percent sure he was in love with Tony Stark. Not only was he intelligent, and not just in the ‘good at math’ way, but he was informed, he listened, and he did a surprising amount of reflecting on his actions for a man who acted pretty arrogant on TV. After a week of talking back and forth Rhodey was impressed by the way Tony looked at his actions and tried to change them, he had mixed success but who didn’t? And the way he talked about technology was fascinating to say the least. Rhodey has never met someone so invested in the progression of technology and certainly never met anyone who viewed technology the way Tony did.
To him it was an extension of humanity, not something separate from it. The way he viewed the use of technology as a way for humans to extend, and sometimes overextend, their bodies explained a lot about how he viewed Rhodey’s wheel chair when he asked about it. Rhodey has long come to think of the chair like a limb and doing the stunts that he did he needed to consider how it would move as well as how he would move in it. Most people got bored when he talked stunts but Tony had clung to every word, asking questions and obviously engaging in the subject. Rhodey filled him in on how he lost the use of his legs and found himself in a chair, which had been devastating but not something he was about to let overcome him. Then one day when he was watching Clint and Phil do some stunts on motorcycles he realizes he was literally sitting in a stunt car so he experimented.
He hadn’t expected Tony to ask so many questions about movements and logistics and he definitely didn’t expect him to come at it from such a mathematical perspective. Tony thought in angles, weight, distance, and speed and Rhodey did too but he also had to factor in biology. He needed to consider the weight he could lift with his upper body, how his body would react when he landed and if he fell, and he had to consider how landing in a certain way would affect his body too. Rhodey expected Tony to veer back towards the math, what he thought was right, but he had asked more about how Rhodey considered his body and if he ever factored math in at all. The answer was yes and no. Rhodey was a genius, he knew math and he used it to calculate distance, speed, height, and a number of other things for stunts but he also had a million variables in his body so he needed to consider all those too.
In the end it was a lot of guesswork and doing things on the fly. He knew when he was in the air if he’d land wrong and usually how he’d do it; it helped minimize any damage done to his body from the falls he took. Unlike most people Tony was hooked on the discussion and wanted some demonstrations so Rhodey pulled out videos and explained how he learned to do certain flips and jumps to Tony.
“That is honestly incredible, the way you learned how to use your body in a completely new way is super impressive,” he says, shaking his head.
Rhodey shrugs, “everyone who uses a wheel chair learns new ways to use their bodies, its necessary. Plus I didn’t want to give up my old life. Plenty of people told me I was stupid for going back to this stuff after breaking my spine but shit happens, the stunt went wrong and I couldn’t have predicted that. I guess I didn’t see the need to live my life in a way that made me unhappy because someone else didn’t understand me decision.” That never made any sense to him and even his momma understood that and she about had a heart attack when she found out he nearly died. That’s what happened when your parachute did weird things in the air though and it could have been worse. He saved himself a lot of damage contrary to what most people thought.
Tony nods, “man I wish I had learned to think like that sooner. I hated my dad and I didn’t really like Obi either but I spent the better part of my life trying to make them happy. When I finally did my own thing I realized why I drank so much and partied all the time. I wasn’t happy and was trying to do something to feel anything other than miserable. And Obi was pissed that I decided to do the right thing go figure. I mean it turned out he was selling weapons to terrorists but still. Jackass,” Tony says and Rhodey doesn’t mean to laugh but the way Tony said ‘jackass’ was amusing and he couldn’t help it. Thankfully Tony doesn’t take offense and laughs too.
“You turned out okay considering. Why did you stop selling weapons though? I mean I know you said a lot of stuff about accountability and whatever but what made you come to that conclusion?” he asks.
Tony raises an eyebrow, “besides being kidnapped by terrorists?” he asks.
“Being kidnapped by terrorists doesn’t usually convince the kidnapee that they’re a bad person,” Rhodey points out. “So what made you realize you were wrong?”
Tony remains quiet for a long few moments but eventually sighs, “Yinsen. He was a Middle Eastern man whose village had been hit by my bombs. It sounds stupid but I never really considered what my weapons did. Mostly I stupidly assumed that they were only used when they needed to be, that innocent lives were at best minimized in the wreckage. I thought I was keeping American soldiers safe but mostly what I was doing was acting as an American terrorist though no one would ever call me on it, not using that word anyways. But Yinsen explained things without even meaning to really. And he understood me too, showed no malice to me even though I was near personally responsible for his family’s deaths. When he died his last words were to me and he told me not to waste my life. I could never dishonor his memory, his last breath by continuing to operate the way I had been before. It would be insulting to Yinsen.”
It was a surprisingly personal confession and Rhodey reaches out to Tony, squeezing his hand and Tony squeezes back.
*
“You can’t skip another Board meeting, they’re getting annoyed,” Pepper tells him.
“But Pepper, I’m in love, I have no time for Board meetings. You can tell them that,” he says, walking around the couch to try and avoid Pepper but she had faked him out and she was coming towards him quick. He looks at the coffee table for a moment and decides he has nothing to lose so he takes a page from Rhodey’s book and just jumps over the damn thing like some kind of stunt person to avoid Pepper. She reroutes quickly unfortunately so he all but runs to the kitchen to try and hide behind the island.
“You get your ass back here, I don’t care that you’re in love and neither will the Board. Well, I do care but it isn’t relevant right now so- get off that island right now Tony Stark!” Pepper tells him, glaring at him from the ground.
He grins, “look, I’m taller than you!” he says excitedly. All the magazine shots of them made him look like he was at least five inches taller but he was actually standing on a box. They just edited his legs to look longer if they showed his feet at all.
“Get down from there right now, Tony,” Pepper says in her Warning Voice.
Tony considers this for a moment before hopping off the island and running off to his room, Pepper quick on his heels. She couldn’t complain because technically he complied with her order. He sort of felt like he was recreating that one time his cat was sick and he needed to feed her pills but she kept running all over the house until he finally caught her and forced the poor animal to take her medicine. Except Pepper wasn’t trying to better his health and he wasn’t a cat. “JARVIS lock the door,” he tells the AI as he all but runs through the door.
“JARVIS, you open this door immediately!” Pepper yells at him.
“JARVIS, don’t listen,” Tony says quickly when he realizes almost too late that JARVIS is programed to listen to Pepper.
“Command overridden,” the AI tells him and he sighs with relief. He pulls out his tablet and sends off a video call to Rhodey. He was more fond of video calls than just audio calls because he liked to make faces and he didn’t like describing them over the phone.
Rhodey answers the call and raises an eyebrow, “are you in bed?” he asks.
“Yeah, Pepper chased me into my room and I’m trapped in here so I might be a little late to our date,” he says and Rhodey laughs.
“Your assistant has trapped you in your room?” he asks.
“Technically I trapped myself here because she was after me and I had to hide. She wants me to go to a Board meeting and I’d rather gouge out my left eye and eat it,” he says, causing Rhodey to wrinkle his nose.
“Nasty, man. Well hurry up and escape your assistant, I have plans and they’re going to get cold if you don’t hurry your ass up,” he tells Tony.
Pepper hits the door hard enough to be mistaken for the police, “you get your butt out here right now! I am not being thrown to the wolves again, that one creepy bald man keeps eyeing me up like I’m a chicken nugget!” she yells at him. Tony wondered if she ever felt undignified chasing him all around the house like this. This wasn’t the first time this has happened and it wasn’t going to be the last. Pepper was hardly the kind of woman to be chasing anything around a house let alone a grown ass man.
“He looks at me like I’m a chicken wing too!” Tony yells back. Creepy bastard, he was. And unfortunately he was fine with the switch from weapons to clean energy. Tony was hoping to lose him in the process; a few Board members cut their losses, but nope. He stuck around and continued to eye Tony like a McDonald’s meal.
“What?” Rhodey asks, laughing. “You know what, I’m not going to ask because whenever I do I get weird explanations like trying to make rocket boots and a run in with the King of Wakanda. I’ll see you soon, I take it?” Rhodey asks.
Tony sighs, “the King was only one time and he didn’t mean to! Oh shit Pepper busted in here JARVIS open the door!” he tells the AI, shuffling off his bed and out the door, shutting it behind him. “Okay, I’m free to escape, I’ll see you soon,” he tells Rhodey and quickly hangs up, tossing the tablet on his table and flying out the door before poor Pepper could catch him.
He sends JARVIS a memo to give Pepper a nice raise and send her flowers and that power point presentation he was supposed to give the Board on the mini arc reactor that he finally figured out. In the meantime he went to Rhodey’s and found a meal waiting for him and he gins, happy that Rhodey remembered his favorite foods.