Work Text:
“Fuck!”
“Hey, hey, okay -”
James knows he shouldn’t be resentful of Tony catching him - he knows full well he’d do the same thing, if their positions were reversed - but that doesn’t stop him from half-wishing for the dignity of collapsing to the ground on his own.
Tony’s hands are all that’s keeping him even partially upright at the moment, so he doesn’t push them away as much as he might want to right this second.
“You good?” James groans and makes a face. “You want to keep going, or take a break?”
“Get me out of this.”
“Okay. Okay. Over here, alright - you wanna sit down?”
“Yes.”
Sitting. That, at least, he can still do on his own.
Tony, because he’s Tony, is already poking at the servos of what Tony has dubbed ‘War Machine Junior version 6.0’ and Rhodey has dubbed ‘Hell Machine version Fuck You”. To add insult to injury, he’s got a holographic play by play of the fall already up and running.
“Yeah - the feedback’s definitely out of sync -- there you go, falling for me” Tony adds as the hologram loops through him collapsing into Tony’s arms, and James grits his teeth because he can’t even summon a decent eye roll in response to that because the pun is truly abysmal even by Tony standards, and not delivered with even half the full measure of innuendo, and puns this bad are only yet another sign that Tony Fucking Stark is tiptoeing around him.
Which is only yet another sign of how truly, obviously, monumentally FUBAR James Rhodes is right now.
He contemplates the possibility of just asking Vision to properly fry him if he’s going to have to put up with a lifetime of Tony Stark attempting to tiptoe, and Tony continues on without so much as a break to breathe. ”I think I’m going to need to program in a new round of positional reflexes, what do you think? Your damn abs of steel help with the stability but I bet - yeah, the balance is off here -” Tony says, poking at one particular servo. “I can fix that in version 7-”
“Tony -”
“I think a redesign there might actually cut down on the lag time, and -”
“Tony!”
“Yes - oh god, sorry - I’ve been - are you okay? Did you hit anything when you - stupid question, I was there, I know you didn’t hit anything. You didn’t twist something? You’re -”
“Help me get these off.”
“Right, right, yeah, of course,” Tony says, immediately moving to remove the Hell Machine. “I gotta get this on voice control to come on and off - and like, so you can bring it to you. That’s right,” He says, talking to the gears, “War Machine Junior gets rockets. I think,” He adds, back to Rhodey, who is going to lose it if he has to hear that name one more time. “I dealt with the impact problem with the rockets by Mark 44 of the suit, so I won’t have to tinker too - ah. That doesn’t look good,” He says, referring to pressure marks left by the machine on legs. “Does that hurt? Don’t answer that, stupid, stupid question. I can fix that - Mark 7 will have better cushioning - maybe I can get dampeners to work, like in the suits -”
“Tony.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Tony says, looking back up at Rhodey like nothing more than a lost puppy. The Hell Machine is now fully off and not in contact with any part of him, thank - whatever for small mercies.
“Rhodey?” Tony asks, after he hasn’t responded for a few moments. “Rhodey? You okay buddy?”
“Tony. Can you,” And he waves his hand vaguely downwards, trying to indicate something resembling chill the fuck out and don’t act like an engineer for approximately five seconds.
“Okay. Yeah. You need a minute. Yeah. That’s fine. Good. Good. I’ll get you - you want a pillow? Something to drink? I can have -”
“Tony.” Rhodey says, grabbing Tony’s arm and pulling him back. “Just - can you just sit for like, five minutes?”
“Yeah. Okay. Right.” Tony says, and Rhodey let’s go of Tony’s arm so he can sit back down next to Rhodey. “Sitting down. This is fine. This is good.”
The silence lasts a few blissful seconds.
“You know, these are good floors.”
“Tony.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Right. Got it. See this? This is me shutting up.”
Rhodey actually manages to roll his eyes.
Finally, Tony leans back and lets his head drop back against the wall, and Rhodey lets out a sigh that contains about three years worth of sighs as he lets his head drop onto Tony’s shoulder.
Tony snakes his hand up and around to rest on Rhodey’s head and starts tracing small circles with his thumb on Rhodey’s scalp, because he’s Tony and he can’t just sit still, but Rhodey doesn’t ask him to stop because it’s weirdly soothing, and Tony knows that, the bastard.
Eventually, he knows full well, he thinks while rubbing a finger along his MIT class ring, everything is going to seem Less Terrible and he’ll be looking at the Hell Machine with fresh Engineer Eyes and geek out about designing a new rocket powered version for the next round of Beat The Shit Out Of Rhodey.
But for now, he has a moment of peace on Tony’s shoulder, who’s still tracing circles on his scalp, and if he doesn’t look at it he can pretend the Hell Machine doesn’t exist, and nothing's fixed but maybe things look a little less fucked up beyond all recognition from here.
It’s good.