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“Hey Peter.”
He turns around to find Rhodey leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of his body.
“Hi Mister Rhodey,” he greets him easily, “Where’s Mister Stark? I thought he wanted to come down to the lab.”
“Oh, yeah. Tony’s on his way.”
He puts down his web shooter and fully turns towards the older man now, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “But?”
Rhodey grins as he pushes off the wall and walks towards Peter’s workbench only to plop down on one of the swivel chairs and pulling the other closer, gesturing for him to join him. A little skeptically, he does.
“You see, there’s this operation planned with the rest of the lot tomorrow. Remember that?”
Peter gapes. “If I remember?” he shrieks and spins his chair two times. “Of course, I remember! It’s my first mission with The Avengers! I mean, the first one where I’m not fighting against like half of them,” he adds thoughtfully but immediately recovers his excitement. “It’s gonna be awesome!”
“Geez, Tony told me you’re excited but you’re really excited, aren’t you?”
“Uh, yeah? Who wouldn’t be?”
Rhodey rubs his hands together, internally flipping through the various plans he has prepared for this conversation. “Okay, so, I’m going to be completely honest with you and you have got to promise me that you will not tell Tony about this conversation.”
Peter cocks his head to the side, suspicion returning at the serious face Rhodey is putting on. “I promised Mister Stark I wouldn’t lie to him,” he points out.
Oh, for god’s sake. When did Tony become such a parent?
“Well, if he doesn’t ask you, you’re not lying, are you?”
He considers him for a moment. “This feels a lot like that moment in fifth grade when Ned convinced me that omitting the truth is way better than lying. I was grounded for lying anyway and aunt May and uncle Ben had a long talk with me about it.” Rhodey is already hanging his head in defeat, when Peter adds, “But, I’m really easily swayed and I never really got their perspective of the whole situation, to be honest. You should know, that when he asks, I’ll be honest, though.”
“Fair enough.” Rhodey nods and just hopes that’s enough.
He has spent a life time looking out for his best friend and he never thought that a kid, an honest and exuberant and superpowered kid, would someday make it harder for him just by being impeccably raised. Well, he’d just have to use the kid’s emotional intelligence against Tony then.
“Tony is not excited about that mission.”
“Because of his fight with Captain America?” Peter wants to know immediately. “And the Accords and stuff?” He’s sitting on the edge of his seat, legs on the ground alternately pushing the chair in one direction and then the other.
He is so very much the mirror image of Tony that, despite himself, Rhodey snorts with a short bout of laughter. “More the ‘and stuff’ part but it doesn’t really matter,” he waves away, “I just want you to know that he’s a little jittery and anxious about the whole thing for a lot of reasons. One of them being your safety during a big boy mission.”
Peter rolls his eyes. “You do know that I’m 17 and not a toddler, right?”
Rhodey grimaces, “Repeating your age really does not help you make a point here. Anyway, I want you to be completely aware that he’s going to be on hyperalert the whole time and he has about a gazillion fall backs in place should anything happen to you. So, you’re going to be safe.”
“But I already know that,” Peter says seriously, “Mister Stark already sat me down for that talk and asked me if I wanted to back out or anything. I know he’ll keep me safe. I trust him.”
“Good, great,” Rhodey nods, “But we have to keep him safe, too. He’s going to be a nervous wreck, partly because you’re on board and partly because he doesn’t fully one-hundred percent trust the others.”
Peter crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I’m not gonna cancel the mission if that’s what you want. I’m worried about him, too.”
“I know that,” Rhodey puts up his hands in a placating gesture, “Which is exactly why I want you on board. He needs people he trusts around him. Our job is simply to distract him by talking, going through the plan again, banter. You name it. And your job is also to not take unnecessary risks.”
He’s about to loudly protest but Rhodey silences him with on look. “I’ve seen the footage.”
He groans. “I can’t believe he showed you that.” To which Rhodey only cackles.
“Alright,” Peter says, more to distract Rhodey from thinking about what he’s sure is a clip of his Top 10 failures. “I won’t tell Mister Stark.” He thinks for a moment. “Do you trust the other Avengers?”
He shrugs. “I trust them to do their job and I think they are good people but I am still kind of … annoyed about how things broke apart over the Accords. I’m sure that feeling is mutual, though. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. Oh, and,” he looks up, a thought popping into his mind. “You should drop the Mister and just call me Rhodey.” He grins. “I’ve never let any of them call me that and it’ll show them right away that you’re one of us.”
Peter looks skeptical and rolls the name around on his tongue a bit before slowly nodding and matching Rhodey’s smile. “I think I can do that… Rhodey. But,” he bites his lip, “do you think I should stop calling Mister Stark Mister Stark?”
“And start calling him Tony?” Rhodey asks incredulously, “Nope. That’s just gonna mess up both your brains way too much. Besides,” he adds with a wink, “I think he’s grown fond of you calling him that.”
“Oh, thank god.”
Steve hasn’t finished the first outline of his plan yet, when Tony interrupts him.
Unlike Captain America, Tony hasn’t suited up yet. He’s clad in dark, comfortable clothes and the arc reactor with his nanite unit sits reassuringly tight and protective on his chest. He has his arms crossed in front of his body and is leaning against the wall of the Quinjet, acutely aware of where every single exit is. And who might be blocking it.
“That’s not gonna happen, Cap,” he says with a little smirk, and suppresses the urge to clench his left hand, “The kid’s with me.”
“Tony,” Steve replies with one of his old man sighs that make him sound like he’s a hundred years old. Oh, wait.
“Steve,” he gives back sweetly, “I told you before, that’s non-negotiable. He stays with me.”
“There’s nothing for him to swing around on on an open field, Tony.”
“Yes, but there’s a lot damage I can do in the warehouse full of important tech you’re sending him to. You know as well as I do that War-Machine and Birdman are more than enough to keep an open, mostly empty field under control.”
Steve seems to work his plan over in his head, before looking to Sam and Rhodey for confirmation. “That alright with you?”
Both men give a curt nod and the palpable tension in the room goes down to almost non-panic-attack inducing levels. Oh, what an improvement.
Peter comes bounding toward him after the briefing and he’s so relieved at the sight of the happy kid that he can’t even admonish him for jumping on a flying aircraft with super strength. Rhodey is hot on his heels and his well-meaning, more amused than anything else, eye roll directed at the kid also settles his raw nerves.
“We’re on the same team, Mister Stark!” he exclaims and launches a high-five that Tony has to reciprocate.
“Yes, kiddo,” he grins down at both the root and cure of most of his anxieties. “Though, you do know everyone on this plane is on the same team, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Peter rolls his eyes and dramatically endures the subsequent hair ruffle. “But this way, I don’t have to storm a warehouse with someone I don’t know.”
“Ah man,” Rhodey jumps in with a laugh, “Maybe you should’ve let the kid socialize a little. Isn’t that important in their socialization or something?”
“Yes, and no,” Tony shoots back easily and jokingly pulls Peter into his side and away from the could-be-fangs of his best friend. (Okay, maybe not that jokingly.) “Socialization is a never-ending process and since out of the two of you, he meets about a hundred people every day in school and you see like the same two people all the time, you probably need the time with Birdie a lot more than he does.”
“But you’re a hermit, too, Mister Stark,” Peter says, or tries to say before his voice is muffled by Tony’s t-shirt.
He releases him, amid the thunderous applause and laughter of Rhodey. “You were saying?”
Peter smiles sweetly, “I’m so glad you’re teaming up with me, Mister Stark. This way you can just point your blaster at all the spiders and insects we come across in that building that’s probably a thousand years old and has been abandoned for like half of that.”
“A thousand years? Really, Peter?”
He just shrugs. “Still gonna be something in there.”
“Yeah, and you know what?” Tony asks a clearly rhetorical question that Peter still briefly attempts to answer. “When we get to that house you’re handling the spiders. You know why? ‘Cause it’s literally in your name!”
“That is not at all what that name stands for and you know it,” Peter protests vehemently, though his eyes show how much he’s enjoying himself. “Or can I just call you when I need my iron bended the next, Iron-Man?”
“Who on earth needs to bend their iron, Peter?”
Rhodey tunes out their banter and lets his eyes wander over everyone else, huddled together or standing and sitting alone in preparation for the mission. Most of them are listening to the kid and Tony talk and laugh, some with a tiny smile on their face like tough guy Barnes, a mischievous glint in their eyes like Natasha or with a completely unreadable expression like the captain himself.
No matter what would happen today, Rhodey is almost completely certain that bringing Peter along would go a long way in reestablishing whatever form of trust and bond they could get back.
That kid wasn’t just good for Tony’s heart. His laughter might bring back life and spirit to the whole entire team.