Discord got angsty (as usual) and I liked a prompt enough to fill it out.
In which Rhodes has nightmares, and Tony comforts him.
Rhodes turned, amid the gunfire and screaming, to make sure that Tony was ok. He had been firing a weapon of his own when Rhodes last saw him. Rhodes turned, but Tony wasn’t there. There was just a pool of blood and drag marks in the sand. Rhodes abandoned the firefight to chase after them. He had to get Tony. In the distance, he could see Tony getting dragged through the sand by an unknown assailant, but he kept getting farther and farther away no matter how fast Rhodes ran. Then Rhodes was alone in the desert with only the echoes of Tony’s screams to keep him company.
The humvee had overturned. Rhodes was stuck. Only able to watch in horror as a bomb struck too close to Tony for comfort, and exploded. Rhodes’ voice was hoarse from screaming, he still couldn’t get out of the humvee. From out of nowhere jeeps appeared. Men swarmed around Tony speaking Pashto and then they were gone. Rhodey was still stuck.
It had been decades since Rhodes searched for Tony. His CO had forbade him from continuing his rescue mission. There was nothing he could do. He was older now, in a retirement home. He had been watching TV when the news broke. Someone had found Tony’s body in a cave in Afghanistan. Rhodes could only stare. He had failed him. He’d let Tony waste away in the caves of Afghanistan.
Rhodes forced his way into the room. The cave was dark, only lit up by small lanterns. Rhodes scanned the room once, and then a second time before his eyes fell on the cot. He moved toward it, recognizing the body of his best friend. Rhodey called out for him, but Tony didn’t move. Rhodey reached the cot, falling to his knees. Tony’s eyes were staring vacantly at the roof of the cave. Rhodes touched Tony’s face, begging him to wake up. The body was still warm. Rhodes had been minutes too late.
Rhodes woke so suddenly he ended up on his knees, the comforter of the bed clenched in his fingers as he tried to fight off the rising nausea. He had had plenty of nightmares about Tony in Afghanistan since he had gotten Tony back. Not paying attention, stuck in the Humvee, not doing enough, not getting there fast enough. His nightmares usually ended up being about one of those four horrors.
“Rhodey?” Tony asked softly.
“I’m fine,” Rhodey said, a touch desperately. He had to be fine. He wasn’t the one who had been tortured in a cave for three months.
“You’re lying,”
“I’m fine,” Rhodey repeated.
Rhodes felt a calloused hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Tony, illuminated only by the arc reactor in his chest.
“Platypus,” Tony said quietly.
And that was it, that damn nickname shattered Rhodes.
“I keep having nightmares where I didn’t find you, that I didn’t do enough to find you- I didn’t do enough to find you- Tony it was three months I should’ve done more. I keep seeing you dead. I keep getting there too late. I keep watching it happen and I don’t know how to make it stop,” Rhodes confessed.
Tony, with apparent ease, pulled Rhodes into his arms and held him. Rhodes tried to pull himself together but his nightmares kept resurfacing. He kept seeing Tony dead.
“I’m sorry,” Rhodey croaked out, a tear or two slipped down his cheeks. He adjusted his position slightly so he could wrap his arms around Tony, holding him tight. Too afraid that if he let go, Tony would be gone.
“It’s ok platypus,” Tony soothed.
“I’m here, ok? You did everything you could do, and it worked, you got me out of the desert and I’m here,”
Rhodes shuddered.
“I’m here,” Tony said again.
“Nothing could keep me from you, not forever,” he said as he dropped a kiss to the top of Rhodey’s head.
They stayed like that until Rhodey assured Tony that he was ok. It didn’t, however, stop him from wrapping himself around Tony like an octopus when they laid down and holding him as close as possible, just to be sure that Tony was there and not going anywhere.