@howwasthefunvee - tony & rhodey!
“you know, you missed all the fun,” tony said without preamble, coming up behind rhodey and clapping his shoulder like they’d just seen each other five minutes ago. “we were having this huge bash. really epic. music, dancing, booze, everything. made our MIT days look tame.”
tony would have called it ‘breaking the ice’; someone else (like rhodey) might have called it trying to avoid the inevitable awkwardness of having to say “hi i’m dead -- but not really” to your best friend; “also, i figured out that orange really isn’t my colour. by the way, how’s morgan? she conned any juice pops out of you yet?”
really, if he stopped and thought about it, he’d have to acknowledge that painful heart-squeezy feeling that was lurking in his chest at the sight of rhodey. rhodey. the one constant in his life, through thick and thin. the guy who’d been collateral damage of his craziness too many times. godfather to his kid. there were few certainties in life, but tony knew one thing - his death would have hurt for james rhodes, and if there was one thing that tony had hoped never to do again, it was to break honeybear’s heart.
....so much for that.