InsaneJournal

Who: Iron Fam and War Machine
What: Rhodey visits after a D.C. trip
When: Early Oct
Rating: Green

Tony was looking forward to Rhodey coming over to the penthouse. He'd already showed off the lab, now it was time to show off the pad. He waited by the door, checking his watch, trying to look casual.

The flight back from New York was fast but uneventful. The nice thing about being War Machine was you could listen in on air control and know what you were supposed to be avoiding but other than hailing people, you didn't really have to answer to anyone else once you were in the air. One man in a flight suit was small enough that he didn't have to worry about sharing air space with a passenger airliner.

He took his directions through Manhattan airspace and landed on the balcony of the penthouse at 212 Fifth. Rhodey grinned at Tony as the suit unfolded and refolded into its portable form. He also had a small bag with a change of clothes. "One of these days I'll give up and start wearing civvies under the armor," he told Tony, offering a clasp of greeting.

As Tony gave Rhodey a firm handshake and a pat on the shoulder, he joked, "What? Military man like you? I thought you went commando."

Rhodey snorted and shook his head: no.

One of the things that never failed to amuse Pepper was watching Tony when he was waiting for something. It was even better than when he was surprised. Surprise Tony could handle without blinking. Waiting...not so much. She whispered things to Morgan as she watched to make their daughter giggle. When their guest arrived she gave them enough time to exchange pleasantries before walking up with Morgan in her arms.

“Hi, James,” she said cheerfully. “Thanks for coming.” She bounced Morgan a little. “This is Mini-Tony, Morgan.”

"Hey, Pep. Hey Miss Morgan!" Rhodey grinned at both of them.

As Morgan waved at Rhodey, Tony smiled proudly at the wife and daughter, chipping in with, "Chip off the old block. Speaking of old, I'm thinking of getting that Just For Men stuff. Yes, no? Daddy need a touch up?"

Tony booped Morgan's nose with a fingertip, and gestured inside when Morgan started giggling again. "C'mon in. I'd offer to barbeque but October's not the best time on the patio. And we've been expecting you, Smithsonian Santa."

"The weather's fine as long as you're in the suit," Rhodey agreed, picking up the suitcase that had been the suit and the duffle bag with clothes and gifts in it. "I picked up a building kit for her that may be a little old but I figure she can handle it. I figure she could handle one for teenagers if it came to that." To Morgan, he added, "You're gonna go through it pretty fast but it ought to be fun for a few days. And maybe you can use it to teach some of your friends about engineering tolerances too."

“Hi, Uncle Warmacheen.” Morgan grinned as she took the kit. “Thank you.”

“Ok,” said Pepper as she put Morgan down. “I didn’t teach her to call you that. Tony might have, but not me.” Her arms free she was able to give James a real hug before stepping back. “No barbeque. I think we can live without the grill until next Summer.” She gave Tony a mock stern look before turning a smile back to James. “What would you like to drink?”

"Just water--sparkling if you've got it but whatever you have, thanks. I don't have to caffeine up for another flight." And Rhodey grinned at Morgan, adding, to her, "You're welcome."

Rhodey hadn't entirely given up alcohol but between his injuries and the need to be flight-ready most of the time, he'd gotten out of the habit. And he'd realized that he wasn't entirely sure how Tony stood on that matter in this universe--a weirdness he'd come to live with but still surprised him from time to time, not having the memories of how things had happened here--so it was probably good for Tony, too. Either he was completely off the sauce, in which case Rhodey was happy to drink mocktails with him, or he wasn't, in which case he wasn't sure he wanted to make a special occasion unless Pepper and Tony did.

He looked back at Pepper and Tony, letting Morgan investigate the box of roller coaster building materials, halfway expecting her to build one on the spot without instructions. "So what's the plan if there's no grilling? Are we doing the cooking thing or are we sending out to one of the places under the bridge for pizza?"

"Pizza," Tony chimed in, choosing the standard go-to meal for engineers everywhere (sometimes in pocket form). He gave a thumbs up to Morgan and mouthed the word 'pizza' at her to rig the vote. "Unless Uncle Rhodey wants something different? Guest's choice."

"Pizza's good. Anything Italian is great. DC has a lot of good food but the Italian in New York is top-notch. But don't put yourselves out." Rhodey hadn't missed the exchange between father and daughter and was waiting for Morgan to ask for pizza.

"Pizza," Morgan whispered, almost reverently.

Tony took out his phone and began tapping in an order. One with grown up toppings, and one that was Morgan approved, with pineapple.

"Donesville. It'll be here in forty. Hear any new rumors in D.C.?," he asked Rhodey, gesturing to a couch in the living room. He was often left wondering if there were any complaints about him or Stark Industries, particularly with defense contracts. They were holding up their end, but it was a crap shoot what the government did with some of the Chitauri tech that was holed up in the holding facility. He wasn't the only engineer around, on tap to reverse engineer that stuff.

Considering that things ran hot and cold with him and Ross, Tony added, "Would ask for a weather report, but it's probably cloudy with a chance of Hell raining down."

"I'll spare you my feelings about Ross, since they're unsuitable for Miss Morgan's ears," Rhodey said as he waited for Pepper to take a seat and then settled down himself. "Things aren't too bad. I hear rumblings about the Chitauri tech but every 'breakthrough is about to happen' story gets a follow-up of 'they couldn't figure it out after all' about two weeks later. And then Ross earns his nickname. If he could figure out a way to make you come down to DC and unlock all the Chitauri secrets, he'd do it in a heartbeat." He shook his head. "I keep telling him that's a non-starter."

"Non-starter? You said that? Sounds like next you'll run for office." As he sat down, there was a lopsided grin on Tony's face as he imagined that conversation. "Since Damage Control is a joint op, I've already scanned everything that looked useful. Pretty sure Ross is covering up a few kabooms at other tech firms with those follow up statements. One of which I hope isn't Hammer's chop shop."

Sure, it was under new (and dubious) leadership, but the thought was still just enough to turn Tony's lopsided grin into a painful grimace. They already had enough problems with that place, in the past.

"Yeahhhhh, about that--" Rhodey said, with a look on his face that suggested he shared Tony's opinions. "How can we keep throwing Hammer in jail and end up with Ross using his people again and again? It's not like the techs Hammer had working on his projects had no idea what he was doing. Even if they didn't do anything that they ought to spend time in prison themselves over, we ought to cut them out of classified work."

"Hammer's never left jail, but it's not for lack of trying," Tony said with a shrug. "Domestic terrorism is a long sentence. Even I know those five year defense contracts are iron clad. So as long as Hammer's joint keeps their nose clean under a new acting CEO? They're easy to get back into. Just make some big promises and prove you're stuck in the testing phase."

Tony gave them a sly wink before saying,, "Which they will be. Testing. Forever. Since it's not like they're us. Hammer Industries couldn't even make a hammer that wouldn't fall apart when it hit a nail."

They are obviously talking shop, which means they're either going to be sounding like two old men bitching about the relative humidity this time of year, or they'll be bickering like brothers. At least until the pizza showed up.

Bitching about Ross had been a pastime of Rhodey's since before he'd gotten his own armor and possibly before Tony had built the original Iron Man suit. "I'm not worried about what happens if they keep failing. I'm worried about what's going to happen if someone thinks they've figured out Chitauri tech. Like some of those jack--" Rhodey glanced at Morgan and finished "--holes are smart enough to find the ON switch but maybe not to figure out how to turn it back OFF."

"Thanks for that nightmare fuel. I know some of those guys are total as-..." Tony caught himself, eyes round as he stared back at Rhodey. It was the deer caught in the headlights stare that would be familiar to everyone present, including five year olds. "...totally astounding jerk...faces...and they'd probably mess things up big time, but...."

Fingers scritched at the side of his neck as he stared at Rhodey, fixated. His mind was racing at the million and one ways that this could still blow up in their faces. And how they had tried to prevent it.

"...but, everything's supposed to be kept in the big vault. So at least it's secure. We confiscated and catalogued every piece," Tony said, thoughts spilling into words with no filter. "Sure, we know I don't trust the feds completely? But it's the crap that got buried in rubble, that might end up on the Dark Web that worries me even more."

Rhodey could see the look on Tony's face and imagined his own was a mirror. What an example they were setting for Morgan, and not just in the language department. "And we've got people on that. Good people," he said, to reassure all of them about it. "Whatever's out there will turn up and then we get it and put it away. Or destroy it if we need to. We did it before, and we can do it again."

"Yep," Tony chimed in, quickly. Deep down, he didn't feel quite so certain. As much as he wanted to make sure everything was nailed down, things always seemed to slip through the cracks. On the other hand, he trusted Rhodey without question and with his life. Same as he trusted Pepper.

"That might get sketchy with the Accords," hedged Tony, all while trying to watch his language. "It's not binding here, not anymore. Still is in other countries. Not sure about Norway, since Asgard's set up camp. As long as we can destroy things here? Safely? We're good. Ish."

Pepper was not ok with the direction the conversation had gone. Her expression went from a polite smile to a stony smile until it finally came to rest on a very disapproving one when those shitty Accords were brought up. Her and Tony had had a vast differing of opinions on those and they’d “taken a break”.

“Hey, Morgan,” Pepper said in that adult tone that held the edge of warning for the boys but sounded like she was offering the little girl an adventure. “Why don’t we go see if the pizza guy got lost?” She got up from the table to hold a hand out toward Morgan.

Morgan instantly held onto her mom's hand but was turned back a little, smiling at them both.

Rhodey had no trouble hearing what Pepper wasn't actually saying and held up his hands in surrender. "Work talk is done," he said. "We're off the clock. Nothing we can do tonight so let's leave it until tomorrow and enjoy pizza, all right?"

Oh yes, Tony knew that look. That was why he was staring at a spot six inches in front of his own nose and about one foot to the right of Rhodey's face. Air. He was staring at a spot hovering in thin air. Probably trying to think up a witty retort, or wondering when the convo strayed off the beaten path into shop talk.

Tony comically winced after refocusing on Rhodey's face.

"Yep. Good idea. Pizza fixes everything." He got up and jabbed a thumb toward the dining room. "I'll get us some drinks from the kitchen. Meet you at the table where we can do that whole polite kid-friendly chit chat thing...and talk about other stuff later...."

Sure, pizza wouldn't really fix everything? But it was darn close.