WHO: Rhodey, Natasha Romanoff, and Carol Danvers WHEN: Right after this WHERE: Avengers Compound WHAT: Rhodey decides to hang out, Natasha scares him, and then... TRIGGERS: Some allusion to character death, but nothing overt
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That energy was still there, that unsettled feeling that Rhodey couldn't keep out. So he walked. Then he flew. And then he walked some more. But he didn't head back to the house he'd been staying in, the house that was technically Tony's. Instinct said no and occasionally Rhodey listened to those.
Instead he found himself on the perimeter of the avengers compound. He had access, technically, though he didn't usually come over unless seeing someone. There was something comforting about it though, like being home in the proper time and place. Granted that compound was rubble now. But it wasn't like it was the first time the avengers had moved.
He walked in through the front door, looking around to trigger the lights. Though it was late, he didn't want to actually wake everyone up. Just certain people. Maybe. He was still working through it.
He didn't need to worry about the lights; a dim light came on within a few instants of his arrival. Natasha Romanoff, clad in a tank top and yoga pants, leaned against the wall with her arms folded across her chest. The corner of her mouth curled into a half-smile. "'Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.'"
Natasha cocked an eyebrow, clearly showing some concern even with the joke.
He should have expected it. After all, it wasn't as if he hadn't known Nat for over a decade now, in close quarters for a good chunk of that time. Logically he knew she'd likely be watching security, not like he was sneaking in anyway.
But that still didn't stop the slight jump through his body, the skip of his heart at being startled at there suddenly being a person after having been wrapped up in his own thoughts in the lonely darkness. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" He hiss-whispered as he forced himself to breathe. "Jesus, woman."
"If that's all it takes…" Natasha left it to hang in the air with the implication that he was showing up to visit someone at the compound in the middle of the night. It was definitely not Kamala or her.
She pushed off against the wall. She allowed a bit of tiredness to show. After all, Rhodey had seen her in much worse shape. Natasha crossed the room to him and hooked her arm through his. "What's up? You okay?"
His arm wrapped around hers instinctively as she hooked around his. Rhodey could still pinpoint the moment after the snap when Natasha started to relax around him. To trust him as more than just a coworker, like a suspicious cat suddenly deciding you were no longer a stranger. And it deserved the same in kind, always had.
There was a heave of a breath through his nose. Maybe Natasha was who he was going to see. It had all been impulsive and half thought. But of the people here, Natasha was the person he was closest to outside Tony. If he was even close to Tony anymore, it was hard to tell.
"Hey, remember back when we met? And Tony decided hiding that he was dying was a good thing?" He mused, head tilting towards hers as if this was some lighthearted conspiracy talk.
"Yeah, I remember. He didn't do a very good job of it." Tony was notoriously Not Good at lying. He could stall, he could distract, but generally speaking lying wasn't his forte. There was also the little bit of information that they already knew that palladium was poisoning him so SHIELD went in to see how bad it was. They had a temporary solution for it, but it was all up to Tony after that. Natasha chuckled under her breath. "You and Tony got into that fight when he was drunk at his birthday party."
"Yeah I wiped him across the floor." Rhodey allowed himself a bit of a smile in return of the memory. The worry that had accompanied it. The same worry that was digging at him now. "Point being. Tony doesn't usually hide things from me. And when he does it's usually a bad sign."
"I haven't noticed anything bad." Natasha frowned. She saw Tony often at work, and he was ridiculously easy for her to read. After all, she'd known him for a long time. And it was part of her spy descriptor. "What's got you worried?"
"I'm not sure if it is or not." The smile faded away to the tug of a frown. It was a strange feeling, like he was out of touch and dissociated from the people he thought of as family. It didn't feel that way with Nat though. This right here felt like they could be back home, working out missions, in a way they'd never do back home again. "Apparently he's started back up with his ex, which he decided he couldn't tell me about supposedly because of Pepper. Which seems like a piss poor excuse for putting his own issues onto me."
"Could be. Could be that he knows you like Pepper a lot and wants you to understand that things are different here. Some people don't seem to get that." That some people was Natasha at times. She thought about how her and the Bucky who dated Steve were so off-kilter. It was something that had gotten under Natasha's skin. Back in the day, they'd always been in sync. Now, though, she barely understood. Maybe because of the whole dimension he'd been in before.
There were a lot of variables here, and without speaking with Tony on the subject, Natasha had just conjecture. "Could also be that he's gotten some flack for how young she is. Or that he's nervous because he has Morgan now, and dating someone affects her and he wants you to have his back. Could be that friends tend to villainize exes, no matter who did the dumping."
"She is young, but it's not like it'd be the first time Tony's dated someone much younger than him." Rhodey dryly replied to that. And if Tony didn't expect to get ribbed over just about anything then he really didn't know Rhodey at all. Which was the whole premise of his discomfort.
"Thing is, none of it seems about me. He's the one that decided how I'd react without giving me a shot to actually react." Sure he got the variables, but that didn't do anything to ease that feeling of disconnection, of being pushed out of Tony's circle for just showing up a bit too late. "Sure, Pepper's one of my closest friends. But to me that reads like an excuse. He doesn't want to deal, so he doesn't. And I thought we'd moved past that. But apparently not."
"He had a long time without those extra memories in his head, Rhodey. We all got a memory update right before you got here. Usually, it's a month or two. Maybe a week if it's extra busy. This time, we all got over five years. All at once." Natasha's memory stopped just short of everyone else's. "I'm pretty sure he's still struggling with that, and you're right, it's probably not about you."
“Which I get. I get it with him, either you, with pretty much everyone here. I get plenty of reminders about how much I’ve missed.” he tried to quirk up a sardonic smile but the fact was he heard plenty of reminders on how there had been a him here, a him that would understand better than him. Never thought he’d have to compete against himself but apparently he was just that talented.
“But it’d go a long way if he could admit it’s not about me, instead of deciding to make it about me.” Rhodey squeezed her arm playfully with a bit of a rueful sigh. “I’m sure you really wanted to hear some dude complain to you about his heterosexual life partner in the middle of the night.”
"The other you wasn't here that long, Rhodey. He was as involved as you are, but that's just because you're you. You can't sit still for very long, but no one is comparing you. Sometimes we hope that when someone comes back they have their memories of being here, but we all know it's a greater possibility that people won't." All the times she'd lost her James, only for him to come back without those memories came back to her. "Some of us forget how it affects the people who came back."
She gave him a tiny poke in his side with her finger. "I know you didn't come here for me. I was just heading to the gym."
The way everyone talked about him it seemed like the him who wasn't entirely him had been here for an age. But while Natasha was perfectly capable of lying to him, it didn't seem the kind of thing she would bother too. Which he appreciated about her, once Natasha trusted someone she trusted them to know her opinion too. Rhodey liked to think he'd earned that place with her.
But he nudged her side gently, still not letting go, in reply. "I could have. Maybe the gym's just a ruse, you knew I was coming all along."
"I know a lot of things, but over time I've learned that it's not cool to bug your friend's places." Which was really the only way she'd know that him and Tony had some sort of thing and that Rhodey wanted to go somewhere that didn't have Tony's name everywhere. "Something about privacy…"
"Is it bugging if you just become good friends with the AI?" An eyebrow cocked up and his smile almost felt real. Maybe a bit of it was. "Because I feel like that's a loophole."
"That is a loophole I will not admit or deny." She'd made friends with the AI, but she actually didn't use it to snoop on anyone. The only time she asked it to contact her was in the compound for life threatening emergencies. Cases where people couldn't call for help themselves. There were protocols.
"Mum's the word, got it." He mused easily, enjoying the companionable feel. But he did look back at her. "You want me to let you go so you can get to the gym instead of lurking in the dark?"
"Lurking is my natural state of being, but I was hoping to get in some kickboxing." It helped her sleep, wore her out to the point that she didn't wake up at every little sound (which was something she was conditioned to do). "But go on, we'll catch up tomorrow."
"And you're a top tier lurker, best I've ever met." Rhodey gave her arm a final squeeze before letting go. "Thanks Nat." He nearly said he wouldn't know what he'd do without her.
Except he did.
Instead he held that back. "I'm going to hold you to tomorrow."
"I don't have lunch plans. They're yours if you want them." She leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek, the same way she'd do for Tony or Steve. The years had shown her that even a former assassin and spy could make a whole new family.
"Oh they're mine now, no getting out of it." The kiss brought the genuine smile out, soft and maybe a bit wistful. This was familiar, comfortable, another member of his family he'd never expected. "I'll text you in the morning."
Rhodey only watched her just long enough to know she was actually headed off to the gym. Or at the very least being convincing enough before she doubled back. Not that she'd need to. Rhodey assumed the whole place was wired for cameras in the important parts. If she was really curious about the door he stopped at finally, knocking quietly.
Maybe he should have texted. The anxiety tight and straight in his spine as he stood in the doorway.
It took a few moments with a mumbled, gimme a minute, between the sound of drawers and other things being opened and pushed around before Carol Danvers appeared at the door. Her hair was disheveled from sleeping, her eyes were half closed, and she was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts which were half-hazardly put on.
When she saw Rhodey in front of her, she blinked several times before turning her head around to look at her room, then back at Rhodey. "It's like three in the morning. What's wrong?"
A crooked half smile almost hid all that as he looked at her. It wasn't exactly three, but he wasn't exactly at calling hours either. And yet here he was, even after talking with Natasha. That unease of energy beneath his skin still there, even if it had been calmed a bit.
"Room for one more in there, Captain?" He asked instead.
"Yeah," she answered, confused but concerned. "Always got room for one more."
The tension relaxed in his shoulders. "Glad to hear. Wouldn't want to have to bunk with Barton. Hear he snores."
Carol just laughed an opened the door to let him in.