Who: Rhodey and Tony What: Shooting the breeze and catching up on their many woes When: This afternoon Where: Tony's lab Warnings: Language
"Tony, you are not making a flaming drink by blowtorching a tumbler of Glenmorangie." Rhodey defended the glass he was holding from Tony's weapon of choice by sheltering it with his forearm, hoping that Tony's teasing didn't set his arm on fire. "I know it's been a bad few weeks, but there are better ways to handle it." He surveyed the lab, the pieces of damaged armor, and the annoyed expression on Tony's face. "You don't need to set things on fire. Looks like there's been enough of that kind of thing already lately." He'd seen the official report on the Netherlands, and wasn't convinced he wanted to see the actual report. The Nefaria extradition looked like it was going to be a mess, and Vernon Van Dyne's death had sparked another round of hearings, which Rhodey was currently missing. Most of it was NIH and CDC people talking about what a loss he was to work in the field, and the part where they were speculating about why the Nefaria organization wanted Van Dyne might actually be above Rhodey's rather significant security clearance.
Even a pissed off Tony was better than anything going on in DC. "There's got to be something good going on right now. Why don't we talk about that?"
Momentarily thwarted, Tony let out a dull burst of fire from the implement in question, briefly contemplated taking the whole bottle and creating an impromptu molotov cocktail, and then, with much grumbling, tossed the blowtorch aside with deceptive carelessness -- it wouldn’t break, he designed it after all, when he needed something that would blow hotter than any commercial product. His own glass was quickly drained -- sipping was for suckers, he always said -- and refilled with habitual ease. It was never just one, after all.
“I’m trying to think of something I can say that won’t get thrown back in my face in a congressional deposition. Not that I’d blame you. Blackwood seems hella determined to bust my balls and you make for a very convincing company man.” And old jibe that, one which had lost much of its color over the years, especially as Rhodey continued to prove himself, time and time again.
"If it's going to get thrown in my face in Blackwood's committee chamber, maybe you shouldn't tell me." Rhodey didn't frown at the sight of the way Tony tossed his first one--if it was his first--back, nor at the speed with which he poured another, but he had experience not frowning. "He's out to bust all our balls: yours, mine, Pepper's. I don't know what you did to piss him off, but he's taking this whole thing personally. He raked me over the coals while you were off dealing with this Van Dyne thing--I may get called back to answer about that too." Rhodey shook his head and took a sip, more measured than Tony's, of the whiskey in his glass. He savored it long enough to appreciate it before swallowing. "We've got to figure out how to shut him down."
“We’ve cleaned out his closets. Practically shook down his mother for dirt. He’s clean as a whistle so far. Why do we say that? ‘Clean as a whistle’? We put our mouths on whistles and the human mouth is totally filthy. Unless we criminalize smoking, the only thing we have on him is that he’s a dick, a lawfully and fairly elected dick.” Even talking about this was making him antsy. His hands, for want of something to do -- build or break -- began hitting the wooden dummy in the corner in combinations until the pain radiated up his knuckles and he paused to take another swig. “We would be much better off if he were HYDRA.”
"All of his money comes from shit places, but you're right, none of it's a crime. Or was." Rhodey's face screwed up in distaste from a combination of thinking about Blackwood and watching Tony attack the wooden dummy. "He's not HYDRA, though. Right? I mean we'd have some idea of that. Like Stern, we found out about Stern."
There was a medical kit around here somewhere. Rhodey might not be able to keep Tony from beating himself to a pulp, but he could at least patch him up afterwards. Also, he reminded himself to tell JARVIS that Tony needed a punching bag down here, or maybe to buy one himself for Tony for Christmas.
"Blackwood is convinced the Avengers are disloyal to America. I don't think he had much truck with the World Security Council, and you don't want to know what he had to say about Nick Fury. I'd say send Cap up there to charm him, but honestly Cap's about a hundred times too liberal for him. We can do it, but we probably want me to brief him first." And hold his hand, and do all the things Rhodey had always done for Tony, hopefully with more sobriety and cooperation. (It was a disloyal thought, and Rhodey felt a twinge for letting it surface, but it was also practical.)
Tony grimaced. “He’s too arrogant to be HYDRA. No, he wants to make a name for himself, not be a nameless cog in the world domination machine. To that end, I’m not sure it would make much of a difference even if we sent him Cap wearing nothing but the American Flag, spritzed in Bud Light, and singing ‘My Country, ‘Tis of Thee’. It’s not about loyalty, it’s about control. There’s a vacuum that’s been left by the WSC and SHIELD, and now all the players are scrambling to fill it.”
Of course, it could be argued that Tony was one of those players and he couldn’t exactly deny that there was a certain element of truth in it. But it wasn’t about power for power’s sake -- it was to make sure the ship stayed on course: the Avengers protected those who couldn’t protect themselves from all threats -- even if those threats were governments themselves.
“The government can make things annoying, but we still have majority public favorability. As long as there are the adoring masses, as long as there’s money, and the DoD is still happy, what’s really the worst they can do? Threaten us with endless paperwork and more boring meetings?” Forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t at a press conference, Tony even tacked on a dismissive shrug. There was the matter of their former HYDRA guests, which was more common of a secret than he would have liked. There was the Amsterdam fiasco where they didn’t exactly emerge smelling like roses. Setbacks, but not unmanageable. This wasn’t defeat.
He wanted to tell Rhodey about these things. Wanted to, but knew he couldn’t. There were a lot of things they could no longer talk to each other about and, huh, when had that happened?
Rhodey found what looked like a medical kit and flipped it open. It was full of small parts. He closed it and looked around the room while he answered Tony.
"I'm not arguing with you, Tony, and I don't want Blackwood to control the world either. He's a smarmy bastard with his ole-fashion charm," which Rhodey said in an accent approximating Blackwood's, and in a tone that suggested he found it anything but charming, "but he's a player and he'll knife you in the back while giving you that friendly hug. And yes, the DOD is happy right now--but Blackwood is doing his best to make them unhappy. Don't think he won't try that with the public, too. He's got friends at the Heritage Foundation, the Center for National Policy, the Council on Foreign Relations, all those guys. The drumbeat is already starting, it's just not loud yet.
"I want to help you with all this, Tony, but I don't know how. I think sending Cap would be good. Might not help with Blackwood, but the press sure eats him up." Rhodey shrugged. "It'll also help me keep them from subpoenaing you."
“Delay,” Tony corrected. “Delay the inevitable. If they see me as head of this organization, I’m sure they’d like nothing better to have it served on a silver platter.” With another swallow, the second glass was demolished, the warmth of scotch finally seeming to settle in his blood and sooth the slightly frayed edges of his mind. He took a deep breath and released it slowly, willed himself to calm before glancing at Rhodey. Between Murdock, Cap, and Rhodey, there seemed to be an awful lot of people willing to serve as cannon fodder in order to keep him off the pulpit, which was heart-warming and annoying all at the same time. “If you think that’s our best option right now, then...fine. Yeah, okay. I’ll ask Cap to put on his best party dress. Maybe get Hill to go with him. She’d never crack under pressure.”
This was a good plan; Rhodey found himself nodding. "Let them take some fire for now. Beats you and Pepper doing it. There's no question you're going to have to go in the long run. But we can do it on your terms and not on Blackwood's. When we go is when you've won something. When everybody's happy about some victory that's splattered all over the front page of the Post and CNN Headline News. Then we walk in and you be Iron Man and charm everybody in the room, except maybe Blackwood, and things'll cool off for a while." A flash of white teeth marked a quick smile; unusual these days, though not always in Tony's experience. "I don't suppose you have another alien invasion you could foil or something?"
“I bet Thor could call in a favor or two.” Tony looked like he was seriously considering it. “Maybe set them on D.C. Why don’t more things attack D.C.? Seat of government power, we lose a few House representatives, no one really minds. It worked for Gerard Butler and Channing Tatum, is all I’m saying.”
God, now he understood why Bush/Cheney did it.
“This would be a lot easier if you just gave up on your military delusions and became an Avenger.”
Rhodey snapped out of his fantasy of the movie of the Battle of Washington DC, with himself played by a younger Denzel Washington, or maybe Jamie Foxx, or as a last resort Will Smith, only to hear Tony urging him one more time to bail out of the Air Force (and the other federal involvements that Rhodey wasn't supposed to discuss) and join the Avengers. "I don't want to steal your thunder, man. You've got the flying armor niche totally covered. Besides, if I don't cover your rear with Defense and Congress, who will?"
"And here I was thinking you played defense on my rear because you wanted congress with it." Tony grinned, every inch the full-of-himself attitude would allow, only as the moments stretched on, the center could not hold. The corners of his mouth gradually tapered off into the perpetual frown they seemed to always be in these days. "I appreciate it, you know. Not the ass ooglings -- well, always the oogling, obviously -- but, you know. The other stuff too."
"You're doing the right thing." Rhodey joined Tony at the workbench and slung an arm around him for a moment. "It took you a while to get here, but I am behind what you're doing here." Another grin acknowledged the joke that Rhodey steamrolled right through Tony's chance to make. "I'm proud to be a part of the organization. And if the thing I can do best is hold the line against someone like Blackwood, then I'm holding it. Because if Blackwood gets his way, if he controls everything, then what happens when someone else decides to drop an alien invasion on New York? Or London? Or ... wherever it happens to be?"
"Rocks fall, everybody dies." That wasn’t even ego talking, really. Even with multiple alien invasions and strange, unexplainable events, nations still persisted in conventional thinking and tactics. More military, more guns, as if there weren’t countless individuals walking the planet who had proven themselves nearly immune to laughable attempts of human firepower. “Probably.” Nonetheless, Tony knocked his empty glass against Rhodey’s in salute. “I’m doing the right thing,” he repeated, taking comfort in the iteration. “So how long is it now before they send you off to...what, next? Syria? Golfing with the President? Babysitting me?”
Rhodey shook his head and shrugged. "I don't know. I think I'm stateside until this run of Blackwood hearings is through, unless there's an emergency. There are a couple of things they've talked about pulling me into for tactical reasons. I just wish they'd brought me along when they tried to pull those two hostages out of Yemen earlier this month." Another headshake, this one matched by a more somber expression, punctuated that statement. "But mostly babysitting you until I hear otherwise." By which they had really meant spy on the Avengers and SGS, but Rhodey hadn't formally had those orders from the DIA and he wasn't following them until and unless he did. And even then, he wasn't sure how far he wanted to.
"I'd ask how this got into the condition it's in--" Rhodey gestured at the damaged pieces of armor that Tony had been repairing "--but I'm not sure I want to know. Thor smack you with a lightning bolt by accident or something?"
“Fried from the inside by an insect-sized fashion designer. Couldn’t have seen that one coming.” Sometimes, when taken out of context, their lives were just plain weird. The only tell that betrayed Tony’s feelings on the whole matter -- Jan’s desperate actions, their failure and what it meant -- was the visible clench of his jaw for a moment, before he attempted distraction by flicking the frayed wires jutting out from the armor’s leg piece and scooping up a self-modified screwdriver. “Should have, though. Does it ever seem like to you that every day the world grows just a little bit bigger and stranger? Entropy on steroids. We’re not supposed to be noticing it to this extent.”
It took Rhodey a minute to shuffle through which of the many women associated with Tony was the culprit. Once the obvious name came to mind, he knew better than to pursue it. Janet hadn't been the worst girl Tony had dated, but she'd been a handful. Rhodey filed away insect-sized for the future, hoping he didn't need it, and nodded in answer to Tony's question. "Gods and aliens already and that's just the beginning. And how are we supposed to deal with all that when we can't even deal with our own problems?" The question was rhetorical, but if anyone on earth could answer it, Tony was probably the man.
And people with superpowers. Couldn’t forget those. “There’s been talk of offering a more formal training program for those with, uh, let’s just say, unconventional abilities. Teach them how to control and manage said abilities. Instill in them responsibility before the temptation sets in.” Gods knew they were enough reasons why such a program would be a good idea under his roof alone.
Rhodey had to ponder that for a moment before deciding he was okay with having heard that. "That's--on the one hand that's good, because we don't need any more Loki types. One was enough. On the other hand, it's going to require some, shall we call it, 'perception management' with the brass, never mind people like Blackwood. He'd make an army out of 'people with unconventional abilities' personally loyal to him, so that's what he'll think you're doing."
Tony wasn't, though, and Rhodey could see that. "Maybe we could bring in some advisors, so you can use their expertise in training and development on the one hand and they can bear witness to your good work and good intentions on the other."
“I was thinking more educational than army.” But never let it be said that it wouldn’t be government if they couldn’t look at something and think about all the ways to weaponize it. He arched a brow. “And I may be looking at one of ‘em. You do have the stern, frowny face and tone of perpetual disappointment perfected.”
"Only for people who are perpetually disappointing." Rhodey cocked an eyebrow and pointed an index finger at Tony. "But yeah, I'll volunteer to do some training, and see who else I can round up. Do you know what skills you'll need? Combat, flight, strategy and tactics for small-group encounters, what else?" Once there was a plan, Rhodey could throw his skills and weight behind it. He knew how to make things happen, how to sell things to the brass, all of that. It was why he'd been so good in procurement, even above and beyond his friendship with Tony.
“Defensive maneuvers,” Tony added, thinking more about it. The more details that were fleshed out, the better the idea was starting to sound. “Should probably overemphasize that one. We’d rather this look more like after school elective. Could probably get Banner to impart some serene words of wisdom on meditation and self-control. Natasha and Cap would be great at hand-to-hand and blending in as needed. Clint serving up target practice. God, we can really do this, can’t we? We can really do this, and I think we’d actually be good at it.”
There was still a lot of room for building some military involvement into it, even beyond Rhodey's own presence. Plus the records would stand the brass in good stead, show that Tony wasn't keeping anything from them. Rhodey could make this work, he thought. "Yeah, we can do this." He grinned at Tony. "Let's get something to write this up."