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Rhodey wasn’t supposed to know about the phone.
He’d stumbled upon it one day, when he let himself into Tony’s lab, exchanging banter with his best friend while he tried on the prosthetics that Tony had built. He had teased the other man about having a flip phone of all things, expecting Tony to snipe back at him with some flimsy excuse. Instead, the other man’s jovial demeanor vanished completely, his face shuttering, revealing no emotion whatsoever. Rhodey – who had initially dismissed the phone with a single glance – looked back at the innocuous device sitting on the table. Tony had his walls up when Rhodey mentioned the phone, and the genius looked at the thing like he didn’t know if he should set it on fire or never let go of it.
Rhodey may not be as much of a genius as Tony was, but he could put two and two together.
“Is this from him?” he demanded, anger sizzling in his veins.
Tony had nodded jerkily and looked away, fiddling with the tools on the table.
Having been Tony’s friend for decades came with the wisdom of knowing when to push the man’s buttons. As much as Rhodey wanted to shake his friend and demand an explanation, he knew that Tony would snap if he so much as asked about the phone again. So Rhodey swallowed the rage that curled in his chest like a sleeping dragon and prodded his friend about his new legs, demanding to test it out immediately.
Tony’s relaxing posture was worth the bitter pill that he had swallowed.
The first time the phone was actually used – and not displayed like some antique model of communication – Tony wasn’t the one who used it.
Rhodey had been called back to the Air Force – the brass needed to ‘settle’ some things – for several days, and Tony had waved him away, citing that he could take care of himself when needed. Rhodey was just reluctant to leave his friend when he needed him the most, but Tony’s insistence combined with the military’s impatience had him packing his bags. He made the billionaire promise to call him if he needed anything, to which Tony had replied impudently that he was only going to be gone for three days.
Rhodey had sighed, drew his friend in for a hug, and left.
When he came back, Rhodey was pleasantly surprised to see the color seeping back into Tony’s face, remembering the all too pale pallor the man had sported the last few days before he left. It didn’t take long for Rhodey to wheedle out what had happened in the last three days, and that the former director of SHIELD, Nick Fury, who was – surprise surprise – not dead, had come to visit Tony.
The engineer didn’t say what transpired between the two of them, but whatever it was had clearly helped Tony in some way. Rhodey squashed down the childish jealousy at someone else helping his best friend when he couldn’t and joked about placing some flowers on Fury’s grave. Tony cackled and told FRIDAY to place the orders.
Rhodey had been sitting in the lab, indulging in some engineering on his own that he rarely got to do with his duties as a Colonel and as War Machine. Many people forgot that Rhodey had been there with Tony in MIT as a student, and they forgot that Rhodey was an engineer too. Tony had been off to meet Ross – sleazy bastard he was – and Vision was trying recipes in the kitchen again. Rhodey didn’t really want to supervise an all-powerful android who was trying to cook and so settled comfortably in the lab while keeping an ear out for FRIDAY if Vision set the kitchen on fire again.
He had been fiddling around with the tablet when he first heard it, a buzzing sound that didn’t seem to stop. Rhodey looked up and frowned, wondering what the noise could be. He was almost convinced that it was one of Tony’s creations/experiments when his eyes landed on the bulky flip phone sitting at the corner of the table. The device was vibrating, the noise suddenly becoming loud and irritating in Rhodey’s ears. The Colonel got up and hobbled over to the phone, hefting it in his hands, its unfamiliar weight matching the weight in his stomach. The screen lit up, only one word on it: Nomad. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out who was calling, and the phone squeaked under the pressure that Rhodey was putting it through.
The colonel took a deep breath and uncurled his fingers from around the phone, settling for glaring at the device until it stopped moving, the screen turning dark. He waited for several minutes until he was sure that the phone wasn’t going to ring again before flipping it open. Rhodey fumbled with it for a moment – too used to the voice recognition features that Tony had installed on his own StarkPhone that negated the need for actually tapping on the device – that it took him a few moments before he found himself on the caller’s log page. His lips twisted into a sneer and he deleted the call log, erasing all trace of a missed call.
Tony probably wouldn’t have wanted to answer the phone anyway.
The second time the phone rang, Tony wasn’t in either.
The man was too busy to even bother to look at the phone these days, something that Rhodey was glad of. It was bad enough that Tony had to clean up the mess that Rogers and the rest had left behind – Berlin, Leipzig, the Raft – as well as mop up the public image of superhumans. Not even superheroes – just super humans. People who were born with an ability, a gift.
Rhodey remembered sitting with Tony and Vision in the compound, eyes glued to the TV screen despite their reluctance to actually be there. None of them wanted to hear another newscaster talk about how super humans should be regulated and undergo some form of preliminary test to identify their danger level. It was discrimination, plain and simple, and the people were afraid.
They were afraid because Captain America – the world’s first superhero – a public figure by his own right, one who encompassed all the American beliefs in his body, had defended the Winter Soldier – a world renowned assassin whose name struck a chord even in the Black Widow’s heart.
On some level, Rhodey understood where Rogers was coming from. If it had been Tony who had walked out of the Ten Rings brainwashed and framed for a crime he didn’t commit, he’d have torn the world apart getting his best friend back too. But that didn’t make what Rogers did right.
A tiny part of Rhodey respected Rogers for standing up for his best friend like that, for having the strength to go against the world for the sake of his friend, but the majority of him was spitting mad that the man had torn the whole community apart for one man. Rogers hadn’t thought any further than save Bucky Barnes, and as a result, there was now little to no chance of redemption for the assassin. By trying to ‘save’ him, Rogers had condemned his friend instead, and dragged everyone down to hell with him.
That was why Rhodey was angry.
He’d ignored all of Tony’s pleas and warnings (it broke his heart when Tony had been all but begging Steve to stand down and the Captain had just stood there stoically) and forged ahead on his own path, blind to everything else except his one goal. As a Colonel, he had the responsibility of leading his men into battle and ensuring that as far as possible, everyone got out of it alive. He couldn’t put his own personal interests above his men, their welfare had to come first, and he needed to trust those under his command to cover his back.
Rogers may be the leader of the Avengers, but he sure as hell wasn’t a leader.
He had acted first and foremost for his own personal interest: Bucky Barnes, and had done so under the guise of a national icon who vowed to protect the people. He hadn’t trusted his team mates to cover his back: he didn’t trust that Natasha and Tony would help him get Bucky out of the spotlight and clear his name, and he didn’t trust the rest of them with the information about Bucky Barnes in the first place.
In running half-cocked after Barnes, Rogers had ultimately condemned him.
Rhodey had no problem with Barnes – in fact, the man was as much a hero as Captain America was in the army, and he (like Tony) had idolized the Sergeant. Rhodey knew that what the man did as the Winter Soldier was not his fault – he also knew that Tony was slowly becoming more aware of that fact – that HYDRA had brainwashed him and forced him to commit heinous crimes. Rhodey also knew that if the Winter Soldier had been revealed to be a brainwashed Sergeant Barnes, he would have been received in a much more positive light than he was now.
Rogers – trying to get his friend back – had not told anyone about his motives and between the two of them, they had left a good number of dead bodies – intentionally or not, a cinderblock to the chest doesn’t leave much other than broken ribs even with Kevlar armor. With all the traffic pile up, the casualties in the German military, the injuries on the road, the public had more than enough reason to be afraid of James Buchanan Barnes. Not the Winter Soldier, but Sergeant Barnes. What the man needed after that stunt, was a proper PR team to help clarify things and rebuild his image in a way that would invoke pity from the public.
And the one person who could make that happen was Anthony Edward Stark.
Rhodey just scoffed to himself, now, after everything that was said and done, Rogers had his best friend safe and sound, but a fugitive who couldn’t show his face to the public. Barnes could no longer show his face in daylight, and Rogers had isolated and pushed away the one person who had the power to help him.
Not only that, but his actions made the public wary of superheroes and in turn, super humans. They were worried at how Rogers had practically bulldozed his way through the streets, and the man’s disappearance after the Winter Soldier’s release only helped to fuel the assumption that Rogers had aided the man in getting out. It was true, but it wasn’t as if the public knew that. All the public knew was that Captain America had sided with one of the world’s most dangerous individual – no explanations as to what he was doing, why he had supported the Winter Soldier – just simple actions that made the public suspicious of their first hero. Rhodey cursed internally at the person who had leaked footages of the Leipzig battle, which clearly showed the lines drawn between the two sides. With half of the Avengers on Captain America’s side, and the Winter Soldier’s.
Tony was working to clear the air with the problem that surrounded the other rogue Avengers, bouncing between the public, the press and the government so much that he had actually gone to bed on his own accord. The two of them had discussed at length about requesting for pardons for the other Avengers, but they decided that that was a problem for the future. Right now, they had to fix the mess that they left behind, both physically and politically. Rhodey knew that Tony was being run down with the way he had to convince the government that the other Avengers had been acting with good intentions and having to deal with his own problems from Siberia as well. The Colonel had taken to accompanying Tony on press conferences – since Vision didn’t take well to social cues – and fielded most of the questions to give his friend a breather.
And there lay the one thing that Rhodey couldn’t – wouldn’t – forgive Steve Rogers for.
He’d kept the truth of Tony’s parent’s murder from him.
Rhodey didn’t know in what universe was that an okay thing to do, and he couldn’t – wouldn’t – forgive Steve Rogers for that betrayal. Not when Tony had come back to the compound alone, with wounds piling up on one another, but nothing worse than the one in his heart. Not when Rhodey knew that Tony could barely talk about his parents without stuttering and changing the subject. Not when he realized that Rogers had crushed Tony’s arc reactor, and that if Tony hadn’t gotten rid of the shrapnels, he would have died in Siberia with betrayal being the last thing he ever saw.
No, Rhodey couldn’t – wouldn’t – forgive Rogers for withholding that secret, not when Tony had idolized Captain America throughout his life.
So when the phone rang for the second time, the buzzing sound echoing in the silence, Rhodey strode over to it, snapped it open and pressed the ‘end’ button.
The third time it rang was an hour after the second call. Rhodey glared at the phone until it stopped buzzing, then mentally willed it to burst in flames when it rang for the fourth time.
The fifth time it rang, Rhodey snatched the phone off the table and snapped, “What do you want?”
There was a pregnant pause on the other side of the line, and he could hear the other person taking a deep breath, “Colonel?”
“Obviously,” Rhodey drawled, “Sorry, who else were you expecting? Tony? No can do man, he’s too busy running around trying to clean up your fucking messes.”
Rhodey heard the man’s breath hitch, then, “I – I’m sorry. I didn’t know –”
The colonel sneered, “What, you mean Wakanda doesn’t have any TVs? No reception for you to watch the news? Or are you avoiding the news on purpose? Don’t want to see what reality has to offer?”
“What? No! That’s not – how did you know where –”
“Please Captain, anyone with a brain can figure out where you are. Now answer my question, why the fuck are you calling?”
On the other side of the phone, Steve paused, trying to regain his thoughts. “I – I wanted to apologize to Tony –”
“For what?” Rhodey demanded.
“For what happened in Siberia. For not telling him the truth about his parents. For the Accords, I don’t know Rhodey, can I talk to him?” Steve huffed out, running a hand through his hair frustratedly.
Rhodey barked a laugh, “First of all, don’t call me Rhodey, only Tony has that privilege. Second of all, fuck you and your half-assed apologies. Tony doesn’t want it and he sure as hell doesn’t need it. He doesn’t need you coming in and messing everything up again, not when he’s already trying so hard to fix the mess that you created. For all that you and everyone else keep calling Tony irresponsible, he’s the only one out there trying to make things right again. Trying to solve the problems that you lot came up with. When it was Ultron, you blamed him for his mistake and let him take the fall for everything. Now? He has to deal with your fuck ups, and I don’t see you owning up to what you’ve done. Where the hell are the rest of you huh?”
Steve swallowed, this was proving to be much harder than expected, “Rhodey – Rhodes, just – let me talk to him alright?”
“He’s not here for you to talk to.” Rhodey spat out, so much venom in his voice that Steve flinched away from the phone, “Like I said, he’s out there, trying to fix every mess that you and the other ‘Avengers’ created. And even if he was here, I wouldn’t let you talk to him anyway.”
“You can’t make decisions for him.” Steve said quietly, clenching his fists.
Rhodey scoffed, “Oh you mean like how you decided for him?”
“I didn’t – I didn’t mean for that to happen. All I wanted was for Tony to be happy – I thought that if he knew about the truth it would just tear open old wounds –”
“I thought, I thought, I thought.” Rhodey mocked, “You keep saying that but you didn’t think did you Captain? Admit it, you were afraid that Tony would hunt your precious Barnes down if he knew the truth. You were afraid that Tony would hate you for telling him. You can try and act noble all you want Captain, but at the end of the day your motivations are selfish.”
Steve gritted his teeth, “Rhodes, I’m trying to make amends here.”
“Oh, and I’m supposed to roll over and accept that? Oh look! The great Captain America is trying to make amends! Applause everyone, please. Am I supposed to forgive you and everything you’ve done just because you’re trying to ‘make amends’?” the Colonel snarled.
“I –”
“No.” Rhodey hissed, “You don’t get to fuck everything up and then act as if you’re doing the noble thing and conceding ground to Tony. You don’t get to take everything from Tony and then have the gall to claim that you did everything to protect him. Just no Rogers. Don’t even go there.”
“I’m not trying to act noble Rhodes,” Steve ground out, “I’m trying to apologize to Tony for what happened –”
“But not for what you did.” Rhodey interrupted, “You’re not sorry for saving your best friend, you’re not sorry for causing so much havoc and damage in the process, and you’re sure as hell not sorry that the Avengers are gone because of you. And don’t think I forgot what you said at the airport, because how dare you blame Tony for splitting up the Avengers. How dare you say that it’s his fault when you could have come to us and tell us what the hell was going on –”
Steve rubbed his forehead, this was becoming a replica of what Fury had said to him, “There wasn’t –” he swallowed his first words, “You all were bound by the Accords, you wouldn’t have been able to help us –”
“Do you even know what the Accords are for Rogers?” Rhodey growled, “It is to keep us accountable for our actions, like how every military personnel are kept accountable for events that happen under their command. If you had come to us with news of a maniac intent on unleashing five super assassins on the world, we could have gotten the legal backup in neutralizing this threat. We could have deployed military weapons to back us up in case we weren’t enough. We could have scouted out the terrain first and acted accordingly – brought Zemo in with no casualties. That is what War Machine does, I work together with the military. Whatever the suit does is subjected to review and if casualties happen, the board reviews the entire situation before coming up with a resolution.”
Steve got the feeling he wasn’t just talking about the Accords anymore.
Rhodey barreled on, “We could have had all of that – even if you didn’t sign, we – Tony, T’Challa, Romanov and I could have stepped in to mediate the priority of neutralizing an external threat. But since you decided to run off on your own to save the goddamn world, you screwed up everything that we were trying to do. Tony had to beg Ross, Thaddeus fucking Ross, to hold the kill on sight order just so we could talk to you. But of course, Captain America is always right isn’t he?”
Steve swallowed, the magnitude of his mistakes starting to dawn on him, “I tried talking to Tony –”
“No you didn’t. You stalled for time while your team searched for our Quinjet.”
The hero fell silent, the phone growing hot in his hands.
“Take my advice Cap,” Rhodey hissed, “Stay away from Tony. You and your cronies can rot away in Wakanda for all I care, you’ve done more than enough. The lot of you don’t deserve him at all. Tony gave you people everything, and instead of thanking him, of appreciating him, you just throw it all back in his face. You throw his mistakes in his face, chastising him for everything he did wrong, all while parading around as if you were saints. He gave all of you a home, upgraded your gadgets – created some of them in fact, funded the Avengers, sent in reliefs to the Avenger’s ground zero. And instead of showing him the proper gratitude, you people just sit back and kick your legs expecting him to meet your demands for a new gadget, for him to shower more money on everyone.”
“We didn’t – we didn’t do that. We appreciated what he did – with the gadgets, the relief efforts, everything.” Steve protested, his heart thudding in his chest.
“Really?” Rhodey laughed disbelievingly, “When did any of you even thank him for allowing you guys to move into the Tower? When did you thank him for converting the Stark warehouse into the Avenger’s compound? When did you thank him for upgrading your suit so you could withstand more damage? When did Hawkeye thank Tony for the new additions to his bow and arrows? When did Falcon even thank Tony for creating the goddamn wings in the first place?”
“I –”
“The answer is: you didn’t. None of you did. You all just assumed that as a billionaire Tony would have money he would never be able to finish. You all just assumed that Tony was supposed to provide everything, never mind the fact that he’s also a member of the Avengers and it wasn’t necessary for him to create weapons for the team. You all just assumed that he would take care of all the relief efforts because he already had them set up.”
“No Captain,” Rhodey stated, his voice low and poisonous, “You're just willfully being ignorant because Tony has been paying for all the damages all this time. You never stopped to consider what happened after you have one of your major fights, you never stopped to consider who actually pays for damages and what happened to the relief efforts. No, you just assumed that everything went back to normal once the baddie of the day was gone. You went back to wherever you came from, relieved that another villain was put down while Tony – injured might I add – gets onto the relief efforts to personally review the situation. He heads back to ground zero outside of his suit so that the Avengers would have a spokesperson there. None of you even care about asking after the people who died in crossfire and the people who were left behind.”
Steve looked down at his feet, sensing Sam walk hovering worriedly at the door.
“So no Captain,” Rhodey continued in the same tone, “Don’t show your face – we don’t need more problems. Don’t give us your apologies – they mean shit when you’re clearly still stuck in your self-righteousness. I don’t want it, Tony doesn’t want it. You burned all your fucking bridges, don’t expect us to throw ourselves into building a new one the moment you ask for it. I’m pretty sure you know the phrase ‘you reap what you sow’, so do me a favor and stop. Fucking. Calling. You’ve clearly made your bed, now live with the goddamn consequences.”
There was a click, and then the dial tone.
Steve swallowed, his hand slowly coming down. He dropped the phone to the floor, the device bouncing off the carpet with a muffled thud.
“Steve?” Sam asked quietly, “Are you okay?”
“Sam,” Steve whispered, his eyes meeting his friend’s concerned ones, “I think we really fucked things up.”