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Oh no, oh no. There’s only like five ways that this conversation is going to go, and if someone raises a fucking pinky finger to his Tony, Rhodey is going to lose it. He’s going to completely lose it.
When the good Captain starts raising his voice, Rhodey starts rising out of his seat, completely out of his control. He’s sat down again, however, by the fact that Tony grabs his wrist, pulling him back down to the Earth in more ways than one. Instead of letting him fly off the handle, Tony laces their fingers calmly, keeping both himself and Rhodey hemmed in off of the edges of anger and disparity as to not lose their collective minds in the middle of this mixed company. Instead of losing it, Rhodey zones out for a minute, checking his recently painted nails (peach, because Riri had picked it out and decided it looked great for their skin tone) and looking occasionally at his phone.
That is, until Steve Rogers stands his happy ass up.
“Captain,” Rhodey interrupts, crisp and clear and still polite despite the beginning of his sentence interrupting the middle of the Captain’s. Rogers looks at him with raised brows, though he gives the natural submission of an officer so clearly outranked; Colonel James Rhodes had at least earned his colonelcy, come to think.
“Yes, Colonel?” Rogers asks, looking at Tony and Rhodey’s linked hands before moving back to the Colonel’s face. Rhodey will remember that.
“You no longer preside over the Avengers Initiative in any fashion. Captain Danvers is the new Captain of the Avengers, and I have the military authority liaison position. What actions you perceive as right and wrong, whether this is an official meeting or not, are no longer relevant. Keep them to yourself,” Rhodey instructs, level toned and frustrated, to which Rogers’s face screws into an expression of displeasure. Rhodey holds his gaze.
“I’m not the leader anymore so I don’t get to have an opinion?” Rogers asks, high and offended, but Rhodey doesn’t roll his eyes, which he thinks someone should be proud of. Tony squeezes his hand, but still Rhodey continues.
“Was anyone allowed an opinion during your tenure as leader?” Rhodey asks rhetorically. Tony’s hand slips out of his, grabbing onto his arm with more tenacity, more strength. Rhodey ignores it. “I don’t think it much matters what you think anyway. Your probationary period has not reached its end, and thus your vote isn’t one that needs to be taken into consideration. Your presence in these meetings is a privilege and can be revoked, should I or Captain Danvers choose to revoke it. Don’t tempt me, Captain Rogers.”
“Well, then why don’t you revoke it, Colonel? You seem to be damn well tempted enough,” Rogers shoots back, temper tested as he rises completely to his feet, Barnes looking alarmed and yet cowed next to him. By Rhodey’s guess, he doesn’t want to be here at all. His attention is pulled away by Tony’s hand on his arm once again.
“I think we need a moment’s recess, if we could have it. I think it would be good for everyone. Captain Danvers?” Tony suggests, looking desperately between Carol and his usual corralling partner, Agent Sharon Carter. They both nod, though Captain Danvers is the one to reply aloud.
“I was about to suggest the same thing. How about we take twenty minutes, agents? Come back at 1400, and come back without the chips on shoulders, if you don’t mind?” Carol clips with her eyebrow raised, not a suggestion at all. Rogers purses his lips but gives her a tight nod, taking the south exit with his half of the team in tow. Tony, who has always reminded him of a Chihuahua when he’s upset with him, is nearly vibrating when he drags Rhodey into an empty office, shoving Rhodey into a chair. Rhodey crosses his arms and waits for the fire to start, because if he gets the first word in, this is not going to go well.
“What the fuck was that, Rhodes?” Tony asks,
“Rogers is a bag of fucking microaggressions in a freedom suit and I’m not gonna deal with it - he disrespects you and argues with you whenever you open your mouth and puts you down and undercuts your arguments, and it’s counterproductive!” Rhodey argues, the steam nearly coming out of his ears, and he isn’t angry at Tony, he shouldn’t be expressing it at Tony, but Tony won’t let him throw shit at Steve Rogers for some reason, so this is what he’s got. Tony crosses his arms and leans against the wall opposite him.
“I can deal with Steve Rogers. What I can’t deal with is my best friend ruining the groundwork that I’ve put down for pardoning and forgiving Steve Rogers and his merry band so that we can get them back into the fold. That’s what I can’t deal with,” Tony says, but there’s one thing that Rhodey has to stick on, because what.
“He doesn’t deserve your fucking forgiveness, Tony!” he insists, uncrossing his arms to scrub his hands across his skull. Maybe he’s overprotective of Tony, and maybe that comes from a couple of decades of being in love with him and not doing a fucking thing about it, but maybe that’s no one’s goddamn business either. That doesn’t mean Steve Rogers deserves to be forgiven for lying to him and trying to kill him either. Like Tony hasn’t been lied to for his entire life. Like most of the people Tony has trusted his entire life haven’t betrayed him. But he looks up and Tony looks stricken and he’s getting closer and Rhodey isn’t expecting - Tony sputters.
“But you forgave me!”
Silence settles. Rhodey racks his mind for whatever the fuck Tony means, tries to do whatever mental math that Tony’s guilt complex has conjured, but he can’t come up with whatever Tony thinks he did. Whatever he thinks Rhodey forgave him for. So he asks.
“Forgave you for what, Tones?” Tony crumbles.
“I didn’t catch you. The suit didn’t catch you. Nothing I did, everything I did failed, I should have been able to - platypus I failed you. And you acted like it was nothing. You just came right back to me and acted like we were fine, and you’re still my best friend and you still love me and everything is fine and you’re not gonna leave me,” he rambles, falling to his knees between Rhodey’s own, and Rhodey just wants to hold him. So he does. He gathers Tony into the well of his chest and holds him against himself and just lets him cry for a minute because that’s what he needs.
“Tony, none of that was your fault. It’s not your fault. I’m never gonna leave. We’ve been together for decades, Tony Stark. I’m yours, and you’re mine, in every way that matters. It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing to forgive,” he promises, stroking Tony’s hair. Tony’s sobs subside eventually, and the tears dry too.
Carol doesn’t come get them.
“I think we might be doing this wrong, you know,” Tony says eventually, when they’ve been sitting like this way too long for his knees to still be in good condition. Rhodey hums a questioning hum. “I’ve been halfway in love with you since I was fifteen years old.”
Rhodey chokes on clean air, and then he’s coughing, and Tony has to get off of his chest, killing their intimacy. But, Rhodey has the idea that they’re just getting started on that side of things.
“I was twenty-two. Coming home from my first tour. When I figured it out about you. Too scared of DADT to do anything I guess, or maybe that was a good excuse, was too scared of you not wanting me back too. But I knew I loved you. Always knew,” he says, not quite looking at Tony, because even though Tony’s already said it, he has near thirty year old fear in the back of his mind making his teeth ache. Tony catches him by the jaw.
“I love you,” Tony says, a confession and a benediction and a completion. Rhodey breathes, and his chest feels clear.
“I love you too,” and it feels like forgiveness.