#we need love but all we want is danger | kimmycup | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

somethingjustsouthofbrilliance · 5 years

Text

I Got You (Tony/Rhodey secret service AU) Chapter 11

I’m terribly sorry for the long wait. I managed to hit a massive writer’s block and I couldn’t quite get through. Hopefully, this chapter will help get me going with the rest.

Links to chapter 10, chapter 1

Tagging @jamesrhodey @supernaturalyloki @chanderefk @aimeeroot21 @markedplaces @mostly-marvel-stuffs @matre-dee @le-ephemere @lo-anlurui @savedbyholmes @kimmycup @typicalcampbell @natty-ts70 @damnhiatus @pubzie @giulisetta @starkravinghazelnuts @donttellanyoneitsmebabe @bookwermthings @tonystark5ever @polygamoussquamous @swanheart69 @schalabi422 @dixiehellcat

If anyone else wants tagged, please let me know :)

Chapter 11

A familiar melody is what awakens him. A soft, gentle hum of a song his mother used to sing to him on nights when Howard’s “discipline sessions” got a little too intense. She’d slip into his room just as Jarvis was finishing wrapping up the worst of the evidence of Howard’s drunken “teachings” and she’d sit beside him, running gentle fingers through his hair, wiping away the tears he tried so hard not to let slip, and she’d sing.

He only ever heard that song once after his mother… after Jarvis came to the hospital and told him what happened. Jarvis held him then as he sobbed into his butler’s chest, the pain in his heart threatening to overwhelm him completely. And Jarvis sang, low and raspy, his voice breaking ever so slightly on the words.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly…

The song had soothed him then, even though his heart ached with the knowledge that he would never again hear it sung in his mother’s warm lilting voice.

It soothes him now. As does the rhythmic feather-light weave of delicate fingers through his hair. He knows those fingers, knows that voice. They hold within them a promise of safety and steadfast loyalty, a rare warmth of affection, a home away from home.

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise…

He lolls his head slightly, leaning further into the welcome touch. Smiles when he feels the hand in his hair still momentarily before sliding down with an almost frantic urgency to rest against his cheek.

“Tony?”

“Hey, Pep,” he rasps out, cracking open his eyes to squint up at the familiar freckled face. And feels his smile drop as her expression falters before shattering altogether. “Hey, hey, no, don’t,” he pleads, panicked at the sight of tears that brim in her eyes. Reaches weakly with his good hand to wipe away a couple that have slipped off the edges of her eyelashes to trickle slowly down her cheeks.

She pulls away from his hand. Shakes her head with a sniffle, swiping in turn at her cheeks. “I’m…”

“Come on, Freckles,” he murmurs, shamelessly resorting to an old nickname he used to tease her with in high school, “turn off the waterworks before you get me all soaked, huh.”

“Jerk.” She laughs wetly, making a show of slapping his arm for good measure. Wipes the rest of the tears away. “I can’t believe you… you…” Her voice turns accusing, her lips wobbling once more. “You promised me, Tony.”

He did, a week after he got released from the hospital with the bandages on his chest hiding the still healing scar from a bullet wound. He remembers it. Remembers the bruising grip of her hand on his, her wide eyes brimming with worry and tears. Remembers how her voice shook when she told him how scared she’d been, how she needed him to swear to her that he would never, ever scare her like that again.

He shushes her gently, grasps the lapel of her shirt, pulling her down toward him. And she goes willingly, buries her face in his chest as he carefully wraps his good arm around her shaking shoulders.

“I’m alright, Pep,” he soothes, awkwardly trying to lean forward to place a kiss on the strawberry blond head. “I am. Just a flesh wound.”

“Just a flesh wound?” She raises her head then, glares at him as if daring him to agree. “Do you have any idea how much blood you lost? How close I… we... all of us here came to losing you?”

“I’m sorry,” he tries, at a loss of how else to comfort her. He hates this. Hates being the reason for her tears, for her worry. It isn’t her job, isn’t their job to worry about him. “Happy got hurt and I…”

“Thought putting yourself in danger was the right way to go?”

“I know how you feel about him, Pep,” he points out with a careful, one-shouldered shrug. “I’m not blind. I couldn’t keep him from getting hurt, so I figured…”

“You figured, what?” She sits up, blue eyes narrowing sharply on his face. “That putting yourself in harm’s way would somehow make it better?”

“Pep…”

She pulls out of his embrace completely, ignoring his call of her name. Sits back in her chair, stiff as a board. “And what about the way I feel about you, huh, Tony?” she returns, voice trembling ever so slightly in concert with her hand that still lingers on Tony’s wrist. “I’ve known you almost my whole life. You’ve been my best friend, my rock, my baby brother, my… my everything. You mean more to me than…”

Her voice cuts out momentarily, lips pinching white with the effort to hold in a sob. She closes her eyes briefly, curls her fingers tighter around his wrist, tight enough that Tony has to bite back a wince. “I almost lost you once already, Tony, and it nearly destroyed me,” she says, devastated and earnest in a way he hadn’t seen her since that day back at that hospital over twenty years ago. It makes him want to crawl out of his skin, makes him want to get down on his knees and plead with her to forgive him. Anything to get that look off her face.

“I love Happy, I do,” she murmurs, her eyes meeting Tony’s once more, unwavering. “He’s sweet and kind and funny and… and someday I would love nothing more than to settle down with him here, start a family. Losing him would… would break my heart.” She smiles faintly at her own admission, drops her gaze for a moment to where her fingers lie clenched white against Tony’s skin. She takes a breath, then another, then another. Loosens her grip, slipping her hand into Tony’s instead. “How do I…,” she begins, then stops with a frustrated huff. Looks back up at him, her expression – an odd mixture of fond exasperation and heartrending plea. “How can I get it through that thick skull of yours that you matter? That we need you. That I need you.”

“Pep,” he tries, begging almost, because he can’t bear this, it’s too much, this is too much!

She shushes him, a finger pressed gently against his lips. Shakes her head in warning. “I know you don’t like to hear this, Tony, but… you’re just gonna have to suck it up, Agent!”

“Former agent,” he mumbles petulantly into her finger, and she rolls her eyes at him, shifts closer, her hand moving to cup the side of his face.

“You try so damn hard to save everyone, to fix everything so that the people you care about are safe…. Have you ever considered that those people want the same for you?”

He leans slightly into the warmth of her hand, closes his eyes against the earnest intensity of her stare, the uncomfortable sincerity of affection in her words. He isn’t used to this. Doesn’t… doesn’t deserve it.

“I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong.” Pepper’s thumb runs a soothing path along his cheekbone, taps lightly against his skin urging him to look up. He does, forcing himself not to flinch away from the near-overwhelming tenderness of her gaze. “I can’t lose you, Tony. I can’t even…,” she swallows sharply, takes a deep breath. “I can’t imagine what that would do to me. I don’t want to.”

She leans down toward him, surprises him by planting an urgent, trembling kiss on his forehead. “You matter. So much more than you allow yourself to believe,” she insists, pulling away once more to meet his gaze. Pauses, as if waiting for him to respond. But it’s pointless, because he can’t. Can’t say anything for the burning, uncomfortable tightness in his throat.

“You matter, Tony,” she repeats, emphatic. “To me, to Happy, to everyone here. Even that Washington charge of yours.”

“Rhodes?” he manages to rasp out, grateful for the opportunity to change topics. “He alright?”

Pepper shrugs, an amused smile pulling at her lips. “If you don’t count the part where he almost got his head blown off by Peter….” She chuckles openly at the horrified expression that crosses Tony’s face. “Hey, you can’t blame the boys. The guy fishtailed onto our driveway like some maniac – they were just doing what they were told to do.”

And, yeah, that one… that one’s on Tony. He did drill it into both boys that anyone entering the Foundation’s territory was to be treated as a potential threat. Because he’s paranoid, alright? He wants to make sure his family is safe, and he learned early on that it’s better to be paranoid than sorry. He just… didn’t think, as he drove there, what it would mean for Rhodes. He was barely able to think at all with his mind all woozy and fractured from blood loss, trapped in the ever-darkening space between the present and the past.

“Shit,” he murmurs, closing his eyes against his own stupidity. “I gotta talk to him.”

“He’s fine, Tony. Don’t worry,” Pepper assures him, amusement clear in her voice. “Last I checked, he was trying to milk Mindy under Laura’s supervision.”

“He what?” Tony’s eyes fly back open, a startled laugh spilling forth. “Oh, this I gotta see!”

He moves gingerly to push himself up, gritting his teeth at the sharp twinge of pain that echoes through his shoulder. And stops at Pepper’s restraining hand on his chest.

“You need to heal,” she admonishes, the mirth in her eyes morphing back to worry. “I’m sure one of the boys will take a picture for you, if you…”

“It’s not just about that, Pep.” He smiles wanly at her, gently pushes her hand away. “Those people, the ones that are after Rhodes, they’ve been tracking us a good part of the way. We ditched the tracker, but…” He shakes his head, his mouth thinning into a grim line. “We gotta get going, Pepper. I gotta get him and myself out of here before these guys catch our scent again. I can’t… I can’t let them find this place. Can’t risk it.”

“Tony…”

The heartrendingly raw fear in her voice is almost, almost enough to make him reconsider, to back down under her pleading stare – anything to ease her worry. But his priority is her safety, the safety of everyone here, including the man he was forced to drop on their doorstep. So he ignores the way his heart twinges at the look of desperation in her eyes, focuses instead on the torturous task of standing.

“Didn’t know you liked the… Beatles,” he huffs out, as he finally makes it to his feet, breathless with pain and effort, one hand still clutching for the support of the bed frame. Wonders briefly if letting go of that support would be a good idea, if he won’t just end up face-planting on the floor the moment he does.

Pepper slides up to him with a resigned sigh, slings his good arm over her shoulders, wraps a supporting arm around his waist. “I just remembered the song,” she says quietly, letting him lean into her side as they take their first, unsteady steps toward the door. “Jarvis sang it to you after your mom… after she passed away. It… uh… it seemed to have calmed you then. So I thought it might help.”

She either doesn’t notice or wisely chooses to ignore the way Tony’s breath hitches sharply at her words.

#ironhusbands #ironhusbands au #tony/rhodey #tony stark #james rhodey rhodes #president james rhodes #secret service agent tony stark #hurt/comfort #drama #angst #president au #secret service au #somethingjustsouthofbrilliance writes

78 notes · View notes