Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Four days. Four goddamn days and that son-of-a-bitch was still off the face of the planet.
Rhodey paced, the way he’d paced for three months during the Afghanistan incident. Up and down the room. From one wall to the other. Reverse. The only difference now was the steady hum of the servos and the fact that the soles of his feet didn’t fatigue from all the pacing -- he could still barely feel them.
Which was honestly the only reason he wasn’t lying face-down in the morgue right now. An external physio check-up, of all banalities.
And hell, had he aced that.
The moment BREAKING NEWS flashed across the TV he’d literally flown out of there, braces barely strapped in place. Paraplegia? No, sir. He’d have put Usain Bolt to shame.
But still he’d been too late, driving up to the Compound’s rubble the way he’d done to what had been left of the Humvee in the desert; seeing, yet disbelieving.
He searched with the same vigor he’d sported eight years prior and failed in identical fashion. Tony wasn’t there and the only lead they had were blood stains on scorched parquet.
At least this time he wouldn’t have to make that awful call. It’s Rhodey, Pep. I lost him.
This time around they were both gone.
The Compound had been pretty much leveled to the ground. Seven explosions in total. The thought that someone had snuck in that many fireworks was distressing enough. That FRIDAY hadn’t warned anyone in advance of the big bang -- not a damn beep -- upped the situation to a disturbing level of spooky.
And that was the kind of bad that made Rhodey break out in cold sweat. Because if Tony didn’t catch on to someone molesting his tech they were well up shit creek. Avengers, Unite! kind of bad, only last time he checked they didn’t have any of those on hand.
Which brought him right to the next issue.
He couldn’t get a hold of Vision, who at this point was technically Last Man Standing on the available superhero roster. He played with the thought, but quickly counted himself out of the line-up. While he could manage day-to-day on his own by now, getting back on the front-line was still very much out of the question. Last time he’d seen the suit it looked like a write-off anyway, no matter how much Tony downplayed the damage War Machine had taken in the fall.
So, scratch that one.
Vision had been on some diplomatic junket for the UN last Rhodey had heard, somewhere hinterland, southwest Africa. Wouldn’t pick up his phone, either, even though Rhodey had put it on automatic redialing. He hadn’t been seen since the conference, which had conveniently ended on the day of the attack.
Rhodey, who sometimes caught himself still thinking of Vision as JARVIS, seriously hoped that mind control slash hacking wasn’t a vulnerability he had to worry about with the android. Because Lord help him, he still hadn’t fully grasped what exactly Vision was. Only that he didn't want to see him cozying up to the enemy in case he could be compromised.
Rhodey's cellphone almost vibrated off the table. He leapt onto it like a predator.
“Hey.” Hogan’s gruff voice.
The hourly update. They were about to pull FRIDAY’s servers from the ruins. It was going to be at least another day until she was rebooted, though, and they could start with defrag. No news on Tony or Pepper.
“Thank you. I’ll make some calls too. See what I can dig up on my end.”
Hogan had been en-route to New York when it happened, running some errands for Tony down in Brooklyn. Now he was organizing clean-up and did some private reconnaissance on the sidelines. Out of all people Hogan could sympathize best on what was going on and he had enough experience around Tony Stark not to lose his head about a gory video or two.
Rhodey racked his brains over whom Tony could have pissed off enough to stage such a blowout though, nevermind the pun. He’d been mouthing off to the wrong people since Rhodey befriended him at MIT. With Iron Man providing extra cushion for his already inflated ego Tony attracted catastrophe like nobody’s business nowadays.
Granted, the whole Civil War fiasco had put a bit of a cap on him, to no less degree because Rhodey knew he blamed himself for what had happened in Leipzig, no matter how often they went over the it’s-nobody’s-fault pep-talk. And then came Siberia, Act Three of their little Cold War reenactment, of which Rhodey didn’t know the details apart from that Captain State Flag had done and gone it and wiped himself and his merry band of outlaws off the Avengers roster the morning Tony returned, looking like he'd been run over by a truck and hadn't gotten the asshole's number plates.
That was as much talking about Steve Rogers as had been going on in camp Iron Man since Rhodey had lost the feeling in his legs. It was a taboo topic, through and through.
His phone made a comeback. He glanced at the screen. Not Hogan. Not Tony, either, although he knew that latter was wishful thinking.
He straightened out of habit at the voice on the other end. “Colonel James Rhodes…yessir... not yet… yeah, we’re working on it.”
He was sure the army didn’t call just to check up on him though. And he was right. If not for the braces he would have been swept off his feet.
“What?!”
The officer on the other end repeated. War Machine had deployed. Autonomously. It wasn't trackable. Stealth mode?
Rhodey didn’t even know it could do that, especially not after being totaled.
‘No… I didn’t…just a moment, sir.”
Clatter in his backyard. Rhodey put the general on hold, went for the Glock under the counter, then pulled back the drapes to the garden.
After the initial shock he felt embarrassment creep up. Why was he even surprised?
“Sir,” he said as he got the conversation back on line. “My fault, sir. I must have, uh, sat on the remote or something…uhm…yessir. Of course. I'll send it right back to base.”
He creaked open the back door. War Machine, refurbished to its former glory, opened up to receive its pilot.
He stood there for a good long while.
A face-off from a western flick.
Not that he stood a chance against the suit’s armament, but for the first time since Justin Hammer had publicly hacked into it Rhodey felt uncertain about War Machine’s intentions.
He tried with the best of all available bad alternatives.
“Tony?”
It wouldn’t be the first time that Tony overrode the suit’s controls after all.
There was no reply which only boosted his skepticism. Rhodey inched closer regardless. What was he going to do? He had a feeling the suit would follow him anyway if he decided to make a run for it. And apart from that looking terribly awkward with the braces it would also be markedly ineffective.
With his concept of an evil tech-overlord still featuring prominently in his mind he kept a close eye on War Machine’s missiles, especially the 7.62mm shoulder mount that had become the suit’s distinctive trademark. One of those meant instant game over.
Rhodey circled the suit, then tapped it provocatively with the butt of his pistol. War Machine handled it stoically… and remained open.
It couldn't relay its intent more obviously than that.
“You've got to be kidding me,” Rhodey told nobody in particular and blew out his cheeks. If this wasn’t his paranoia come alive it bore Tony’s fingerprints all over. Because of course they couldn't just use War Machine’s comms system, they had to go the cryptic way.
He glanced down at his legs then, and wondered if the suit could accommodate the extra bulk of the braces. He saw no way how to leave those behind. Even if he did take them off, boarding the armor would entail a lot of crawling and pulling himself into its snug frame and he wasn’t about to undergo that kind of humiliation.
“Alright,” he said and took a step towards the armor, holding out his arms. "Gimme a hug."
War Machine crossed the remaining distance, enveloping him in titanium-alloy. The armor fit neat around the braces and Rhodey suddenly hedged no doubt that Tony had made the necessary modifications. When the HUD came alive it even showed the prosthetic mounted on the virtual body display.
There was also one unread message, emphasized by the little retro mailbox opening and closing in a pop-up window.
Huh. He hadn’t had that before.
“Open it,” he instructed
It was a text message, short and crisp.
'Buckle up.'
War Machine’s thrusters incited instantly.
Predictably he had no control whatsoever.