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Tony grabs onto the hand in front of him, using Rhodey’s help to pull himself onto the side of the ship. He never thought that they would get this far, never really thought that the pirate thing would extend further than stealing one of his father’s boats and getting himself and Rhodey the hell out of dodge, but here they are. A crew, a team of sorts, and they’re all happy and together. Even when Tony has to use a sword to knock an enemy combatant off of the side of the hull.
“Come on! Don’t look so glum! We’re bonding!” Tony says above the din of the fighting, throwing a grin at the acting Captain Rogers. Both he and Rhodey technically outrank him, and Rhodey is quite the leader, but ever since they got married about a year ago, they’ve been taking a bit of a sabbatical.
“This isn’t the team bonding experience I had in mind,” Steve says as he tosses an AIM specialist like a ragdoll, directly over the edge of the hull and into the unforgiving sea. Tony grins as he kicks one of the guys in the chest, sending him into the guy that Rhodey is fighting. Advanced Idea Mechanics is the most recent government endeavor to keep up with the genius of Tony himself (though he does remain humble), his beautiful husband, their close friend Helen Cho, and the other geniuses about the Industry. Tony may have stolen this particular ship for the dramatics of it all, but he’s nothing if not a pretty thief. Rhodey would say that he’s saying petty wrong. Speak of the devil.
“Hey honeybear!” Tony says, jumping into Rhodey’s arms to spring himself over to the other side of the ship, a familiar move that doesn’t even catch Rhodey by surprise. Tony had always been small, small for a girl and then even smaller for a boy, but he had never really cared all that much.
“Tony, at your back!” Pepper yells, putting a sword through a man that Tony only sees when he spins on his heel. He blows her a kiss in thanks before catching a man behind her with one of his ranged weapons. There aren’t really words to describe what weapons he has yet, being as he and Rhodey developed them with the help of Cho to make them feasibly safe for Tony to use.
“Stark, we got a problem!” Clint shouts from the starboard side of the quarter deck, atop of the hawkeye. An AIM specialist is walking down the stairs to the captain’s quarters, which would be fine, except that Tony’s tech is down there. It’s too close to structurally integral things for him to send a blast down there, and Clint can’t get down from the hawkeye viewpoint because they need him up there. James Barnes slips off of the quarter deck and throws himself nearly halfway down the stairs, catching himself in that awful, terrifying way that he does. He was a prisoner of war before they got him, but now he’s Steve’s acting first mate. Tony doesn’t really know much of the story before or between that.
“You got it, Frosty?” he calls to Barnes, who nods before throwing the offending agent out on his ass. Tony doesn’t know why the entire fuck Barnes and Rogers are so goddamn strong, but it’s more useful than it has any right to be.
“Yeah, got it,” Barnes says, his voice quiet but still carrying. Rhodey jumps from the quarter deck to land a foot on the throat of the AIM agent, at which point the entire battle comes to a stop. Tony looks around suspiciously.
“I think we found the leader,” he says shiftily, weary of the sudden stop. Battles never end easily for liars and thieves, and that’s pretty much the entire crew, to different degrees. He doesn’t know that Bruce Banner has technically even broken a federal law, and he at least knows that he’s never personally witnessed him do it, even as Bruce has been on the crew for almost a decade. Rhodey presses harder against the man’s throat, making him cough as he turns red.
“What’s your name, soldier?” he asks, letting up just a little. The man on the ground grins, making Tony want to stomp the guy out himself.
“I’m no soldier, James Rhodes. I’m the Scientist Supreme of Advanced Idea Mechanics, Andrew Forson,” Forson introduces, still giving Rhodey a shitty grin. Tony loves his husband so fucking much when the man just fucking rolls his eyes.
“Cool. That mean you’re in charge?” Rhodey asks, giving a second of pressure against the guy’s throat again before pulling back. Forson’s grin drops into a scowl, deepened by obvious pain.
“Yes, I am in charge, as you would say,” Forson says. Rhodey smiles.
“Cool,” he replies, dropping his sword into beside Forson’s skull quickly, making the leader flinch. “You and your boys are going to leave, and I’ll tell you why. I ever see you personally again, I’ll make a windchime out of your rib bones. That clear enough for you, Scientist Supreme?” Rhodey asks, his smile turning into something sharp and threatening. Forson swallows.
“Understood,” he says. Rhodey takes his boot off of Forson’s throat slowly, and god, Tony loves him. He’s so fucking hot. Forson stands slowly.
“Off the boat,” he orders his men, leaving no room for argument. The AIM fucks leave in four single file lines, using the bridges they put down to get onto the Industry to get the fuck back off of Tony’s boat. Tony jumps Rhodey as soon as their enemies are no longer within firing range.
“You’re so fucking hot,” he says, manically grinning. Rhodey caught him with hands around his thighs, rolling his eyes and holding Tony against his waist. He still doesn’t drop Tony though, which just means he’s just as into it as Tony.
“Gross,” Natasha comments, which breaks the atmosphere of the rest of the ship, sending everyone into celebrations. Pepper walks to put a hand on Tony’s shoulder, guiding him off of his husband.
“We were doing something before the attack, you know,” she reminds Tony, getting out registration papers and other things he needs to be a proper thief or whatever. Pepper does all of the elegant thievery that no one ever thinks to associate with pirates, though the Industry does have one of the most diverse crews that Tony knows of. The only other crews that Tony knows of with even a similar amount of variety is the Manor, Charles Xavier’s crew, and their ‘rival’ crew, Erik Lehnsherr’s Brotherhood.
“But Pep,” he whines, his arms still around Rhodey’s neck. Rhodey kisses him on the forehead, disentangling himself from Tony entirely.
“Go with Pepper,” Rhodey says, moving closer to whisper into his ear, “I’ll make it worth your while later.”
Tony shivers, and then he goes with Pepper.