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“Boss. AI-K13 has just alerted me that the tracker of the Spider-man suit just excited an altitude of 3500 feet, and is currently dropping fast. The emergency parachute has been activated as per protocol ‘Kids cannot fly’” Friday’s voice plays through the glasses on Tony’s face. A small picture, live video from the suit playing in the corner as the kid drops towards the sea below.
Tony has no clue how to kid managed to do it, but honestly is shouldn’t surprise him.
“Thanks Fri” Tony pushes to his feet, waving a hand at Pepper before he walks outside, “Any clue how the kid got 3500 feet in the air?”.
“It is currently unclear Boss. I am currently scanning the footage from the ‘baby monitor’ protocol. But AI-K13 describes a man with a wing suit similar to the one of Sam Wilson” Friday replies. “There appears to be a problem with the parachute, Boss”.
Friday says the last part as Tony watches the kid plumet towards the sea, something obscuring one of the two camera’s. A white fabric float in the wind. “No shit Friday”. He watches as the kid falls under the water and sinks deep into the water. Both camera’s obscured as the parachute clamps around his small body. “Friday, deploy a suit to his location now. And give me audio from the suit”.
The video feet from the Kid’s suit becomes small, the feed from on of his own suits springing to life in front of his eyes. The audio muffled as the kid fight to get free of the fabric. To get up and out of the water. Up to the air his lung desperately needs.
“Friday, how fast can you get a suit there?” Tony’s voice is almost shaky as he asks, because he knows he won’t be able to get there in time if his unmanned suit can’t do anything. “Actually, never mind that. Let’s just get going. Please, find the fastest route to Mr. Parker location”.
Tony doesn’t care about that kid. Not really. Bringing him to Germany had been a mistake. Letting him fight like that had been a mistake. He was fourteen for the love of god.
No Tony didn’t care, but he did feel responsible for the kid. Felt a need to at least keep an eye out for trouble and help the kid when it was needed. That, was why he let a suit from around him despite a promise to Pepper that he would stop. That he’d reached the end, and that they, the two of them would make a life together. He hadn’t given her the ring yet, but he would.
Soon enough he would.
He flew through the sky that night. High above the city faster than he’d ever done before. Quicker than anybody else could. As he watched the suit Friday had already sent out reach the kid, the screen going dark as it dove into the water and Tony could only hope for the best.
His heart skipping desperate beats as he too neared the single from the tracker. As he look over the vitals in the screen, as they dropped, dropped, dropped. Until nothing was active. Only the desperate boults of electricity shooting through the suit at AI-K13’s command. Tony wondered, if he’d told the kid about the AI, what would he call it? Would he treat it as much as a person as Tony did, or would he treat it like a computer? And would Tony ever figure that out? Get an answer to the sudden curiosity.
The deployed suit is leaning over a lack body on the ground, desperately pushing against the chest of the spandex clad figure. Down, break, down, break, down, break. Over and over.
It made Tony break…
***
Rhodey has seen Tony Stark, his best friend Toons, at his lowest. Back in the days between parties off campus, vomiting in a trashcan that made their dorm room smell bitter and sour in the late-night hours, and tears that had been cried, spilled over the floor about a father that didn’t see. A father who didn’t understand.
He’s seen Tony after three months of captivity in the baking hot desert, the man bloody and broken as he was pulled into an awkward hug against Rhodey’s chest as they finally found him.
When Iron Man showed up, and as War Machine did too, Rhodey stuck around. Right there, by Tony’s side, he fought together in the battle of his life against flying drones and robots. Killer machines build by Hammer. But it was okay, because his best friend was there to help. Just like he’d helped when Tony couldn’t even push himself to his feet, as the reactor in his chest had slowly been killing him. Poisoning him.
He’d seen the early stages of Tony’s anxiety build up a wall of brick and a golden aluminum alloy around him around him. Pulling him underneath the surface. But Rhodey was there.
Rhodey was ready, day and night to pick up the frightening calls of Tony Stark, as he sobbed over the phone. Begging for forgiveness for everything he’d done, and everything he hadn’t.
Then the crash came, the ground closer and closer and a little closer. And then nothing.
He’d woken with Tony by his side and a promise of walking once more. Maybe not with his own two legs, but walking, that Tony could fix. And so he did.
Rhodey had seen Tony had his lowest. Tony had seen Rhodey at his lowest too.
Together, side by side. Through thick and thin. They couldn’t be pulled apart ever. Not by the thousands of starts and moons and the galaxy. Not by an alien attacker of magical god.
Rhodey has seen Tony at his lowest, at least so he thinks so. Then comes the midnight call, on a day where everything was supposed to be perfect. Where nothing could go wrong. Rhodey had been flying high in the sky from morning to late afternoon. Dinner eaten from his military friends. Rhodey should have known it was all just peace before the storm.
He’s asked to come to the tower. The same tower, that he knows Tony is currently cleaning out. Sold. Gone. Replaced with the compound. He doesn’t question it. He doesn’t. Really.
Happy Hogan is waiting it the dark lobby of the once so impressive tower. Rhodey remembers watching kids looking through the windows outside, wide eyes at what once had been a building of dreams and superheroes. Happy says nothing as he leads Rhodey to the elevator. He seems shaken and oddly more quite than he usually is. Rhodey knows Happy well, and this isn’t the Happy he knows. Something is horribly wrong. He can feel it in his gut, been able to since he heard Tony’s shaky voice over the phone call just twenty minutes earlier.
He steps into the elevator slowly. The leg braces squeaking at the movement. A reminder that he needs to have Tony take a look at them soon, rather than later.
He lets the doors slide closer in front of him. Happy disappearing out of sight, as the elevator goes up towards the Penthouse levels and helicopter pad. Where Tony and himself so often had landed with the armors and suit’s over the years.
He listens to the sounds of the steady movement of the elevator as he tries to figure out mentally what could have gone wrong this time. Was it Pepper? Had something happened to the love of Tony’s life? Could that explain why Tony seemed to be so… so unstable…
He waiting patiently as the elevator came to a stop. The doors sliding open, lighting up a path through the penthouse. Towards the living room.
Rhodey can hear that small, almost nonexistence sobs, before he even sees his best friend. They echo through the apartment, hitting one wall and shooting towards the next one. And the one after that as well. But Rhodey knows where the sounds come’s from soon enough.
There… in the pale moonlight from the window, he sees Tony on the floor. Having stumbled in through the door to the balcony and lost balance of felt to sick to keep going. His skin pale, his eyes red of puffy. Tear tracks running down his cheeks. Leaving grows and scares on his face. Both literally and fictively.
Tony looks like shit. Like something that cat might have carried in. But that isn’t what really makes Rhodey stop and rethink everything in his life.
In Tony’s arms, held close to his chest is a small figure, clad in red and blue spandex. Spider-man. Unmoving. Smaller than he’d seemed in Berlin during the fight against the roughs. Hurt… no… uh… Rhodey stops in his own steps because, Spider-man isn’t just unmoving. He’s still. Unnaturally still. No repetitive movement of his chest as he breaths in and out. No sign of life.
The mask is discarded on the floor by Tony’s side, the suit left open by the door. And Rhodey can’t believe his own eyes. Because Spider-man isn’t a man at all. He’s a kid. A kid with brown curly hair, and soft expressions on his face.
Spider-man… a kid… is dead.